6 Q, 





i 



THE 

MODERN DRUID, 

CONTAINING 

INSTRUCTIONS 

Founded on Phyiical Reasons, 
Confirmed by long Practice, 
And evidenced by Precedents, 
For the much better Culture 

Of YOUNG OAKS 

MORE PARTICUL A R LY, 

Than what they have been Subjed to by 
any Late Dilcipline : 

W I T H 

Various ReSedcions interfperfed on the Occafion, 

Avia ( ^lerc'i colls) peragro loca^ 'nuUhis ante 

Trita Solo — - — ~ — 

— Vo henda dlc^ ^'En ! atiuUt ultro. 

By James W heeler, Gent. 

LONDON: 

Printed for the AUTHOR : And fold by C. Davis, 
oppofite Grafs-Inn Gate, Holbourn ; and J.Clarke, 
under the Royal-Exchange^ CornhllL M.dcc.xlvii, 

,1V 



4 




i 



0 



T O T H E 
NOBILITY. and the GENTRY 
\ O F 

GREAT BRITAIN, 

Proprietors of Woods, Chaces, Wafts, 
Parks, or Paftures, or any kindfy Soils 
Produftive of the O A K— 



Mojl Noble Lords ai^d Ge7ttle7neny 

TH E Compafs of the Field 
of Nature being as exten- 
five as the Subjeds thereof 
are various^ and the E^xz. of experi- 
A 2 mental 



DEDICATION. 

mental Science therein, but late, in 
comparifon of the age of the World ; 
It is no wonder that many Errors 
thro' a fpeculative inadvertency, and 
a rehance on defcdive Hypothefes 
only, in Natural Philofophy, have 
been received by Mankind and even 
attained an EftabHftiment by the au- 
thority of Great Names : Which 
feverally in their Turns, have occa- 
fionally hoodwink'd Reafon, blinded 
the Senfes of, and at laft left all their 
Followers in the dark. 

On thefe Confiderations, my own 
Senfe, and dear bought Knowledge 
thereof on the Point depending, a 
Natural concern for others Welfare 
in the like cafe, and withal the 

great 



DEDICATION. 

great fufFerance of Particulars and 
the Publick therebyj without a fin- 
gular regard to any prefent Intereftj 
or Reputation of my own, have ia» 
duced me Humbly to lay before 
you, the enfuing Treatife ; contain- 
ing a variety of unwearied Experi- 
ments, and Obfervations relating to 
the better Culture of that moft va- 
luable and Augufl: Tree, the Oak. 

And I flatter my felf, that but 
few circumftances of any great Im- 
portance have wholly efcaped my 
Attention ; altho' I have not the 
Vanity to imagine, but that great 
improvements may be added there- 
to, by the Sagacity, and Judgment 
of others, who will give themfelves 
A 3 the 



DEDICATION. 

the trouble of perfuing the fame 
Subjeft. 

It were indeed at prefent to be 
wiflied, that where Fortune has be- 
flowed (tho' fo far only) the know- 
ledge of a fuccefsful Form of artful 
Pradice on the Oak^ it had not de- 
nied both the Gift and Propriety of 
an elaborate Defcription of it : as in 
its natural Produdlions alone, it is 
the Source of all the Riches and 
Strength of Britons^ and a minifteri- 
al Defender of our Lives and Liber- 
ties againft Foreigners. 

I HOPE however to have fucceed- 
ed, tho' not in a Polite, yet in a 
middle manner between extreams ; 

as 



DEDICATION. 

as the cafe will be found neceflary 
to be, in my endeavour to fupport 
my Reafons intelligibly to every 
Reader, on the plaineft Evidences, 
that my Obfervations and Experi- 
ments fuggefted to me : And the 
rather, as I have not confided over- 
much in Notional Niceties, or pre- 
fumed to dive into the Minutiae of 
things. 

Where I have ventur'd to Philo- 
fophife, I have been ftudious to do 
it v^ith allowable moderation, and 
without arguing upon the Stretch. 

And altho' I may not be quite 
clear in fome Principles of this ab- 
ftrufe kind of Philofophy ; yet for 

the 



DEDICATION. 

the avowed Succefs of the Mecha- 
nifm herein recommended ; of which 
you will meet with the ftrongeft E- 
vidence poffible in a Writer : Give 
me leave. Mod Noble Lords and Gen- 
tlemen, to fet forth with all due Sub- 
miffion the following Scheme under 
Your Patronage and Protection j 
till fair Trials thereof may be made 
by judicious Hands. Efpecially as 
the Salvage of your Property in the 
general of this kind, not my own 
Private Ambition has induced me to 
the Boldnefs of This my fo general 
Addrefs to You. 

On the Humble Hope of a for- 
tunate Event, every way hereof; I 
found my Profecution of a further 

Defign 



BEDICATION. 

Defign to fubmit fome different 
Branches of Argument on the fame 
Subjed, to your further Animad- 
verfion. 

Being on all occafions 



Tour mofi Devoted 



And mofi Humhle Servant^ 



James Wheeler, 



The Author not having had the Opportunity 
of corredling the Prefs, the Reader is de- 
lired to pardon the following Errata. 



Page- 


Line 


for 


read 


7 


22 


pre-pretended 


pretended. 


17 


23 


deriveable 


defirable. 


64 


15 


ground 


round. 


lOI 


12 


inepitudinem 


ineptitudinem. 


102 


II 


tuberous 


tubulous. 


149 


10 


would be 


would, I fay, be. 


169 


4 


promifing 


premifing. 



i 



The Explanation of the Plate of the 
Tree. 

c. b. H E two Barkrings of the low- 

JL ell Bough debar kt. 

a. The Place where the firft approach- 
ing mortality thereon, ufually ap- 
pears. 

c. b. The two Barkrings again, of the Bough 
above the former debarkt. 

a. The firft dying part ufually, of that 
Bough likewife as aforefaid. 

c. b. The third being the uppermoft bough 

debarkt. 

d. d. Two fmall Boughs left to arreft the 

afcending Sap again ft the next de- 
barking time appointed. 

q K S, Be^ 



N. B. Between the uppermoft Bough 
debarkt, and the middle one, are aifo 
two fmall boughs left, for the afore- 
mention'd reafon. 

Wi T HAL— If an Oak is fo young and fmall 
as the Plate reprelents ; The two lower 
boughs only, had been fufhcient to be 
debarkt the firft operation. 

Memora?7du??2, 
None of the fmall Twigs are defcribed 
in the Plate, which are intended, as will 
be further fhewn, for Contufion ; as they 
would pofiibly have been a hinderance to 
a plain View of the otlier operations de- 
fcribed. But are productions which will u- 
fually be fouqd naturally growing on moft 
Oaks. 



\ 



A Perfect Copy of Dr. Grew\ De- 
fcription, by the help of a Micro- 
fcope, of one fourth part of an 
Oak branchy being near an Inch 
in Diameter. 

N, B. 

ALTHO' the Engraver of the Origi- 
nal Plate has performed his Part very 
juftly, yet by fome means or other the 
Referential Letters therein and around the 
fides are very Erroneous, as w^ill be found 
by any Perfon who v^ill give himfelf the 
trouble of looking into Dr. Grew's either 
Folio, or Odtavo Copy — Which Errors I 
have endeavoured to correal in tkis, 

A B C D. The Bark. 

A B. The Skin, 

X Y. X Y. X Y. The Parenchyma. 

D Q^R C. The common Lymphas- 

dufts, between the 
Bark and Wood. 

H 1. A Ring of another fort 

of Lymphaedufts. 

K L A L 



K L A I. A fort of Refiniferous 

VelTels poftur'd in fe- 
veral round Parcels. 

D C F E. The wood included be- 
tween the fame. 

Z Z. The inner part of the 

wood again defcribed. 

From S T to near E F. Several undulated 
WhitenefTes denoting the feveral an- 
nual Rings of Wood. 

Q_Q_Q_Q^ The large Horizontal In- 

fertions running from 
the outer Ring of 
Wood to the Center 
of fuch Tree. 

Between which and noted by R R R are 
defcribed the fmaller Infertions. 

E E G The Pith. 

Between D S M W O E and C T N 
W P F Are great numbers of Tu- 
bulous Vellels Denoting an Employ- 
ment feverally for Air and Sap, and 
perhaps combinedly, as Nature's occa- 
fions may demand. 



MODERN DRUID 



O R, 

A DISCOURSE on a new Manner 
of Culture of the O A in his 
Majefty's British Dominions. 



CHAPTER L 



Phcehe fave^ novus ingreditur tua templa facerdos. 

TibulL ad ApolL 

A D it been cuftomary in the age 
and times of TUbullns^ for Fro-^ 
faic writers of this kind, on 
their lirft attempt^ to have in- 
voked the affiftance of the God 
of vvrifdom ; it would have been found that 
they had more occafion for fuch aid^ than 

B on 




[ 2 ] 

on any fubjefts to be handled, of his fort. 
That the difficulty at leaft herein is very great, 
may be learned from a moft experienced 
modern author of like kind, namely Mon- 
fieur de la ^lintinye ; who fays, " That in 
" all that variety of fpeculations, that ferve 
for the entertainment of our intelleftual 
" faculties, there is not any fubjed: more 
" nice, and intricate to adjuft rightly, than 
" that of vegetation.'* 

That thofe perfons therefore, who may 
unadvifedly take this T'raSi in hand, to read 
with the foft view of pleafurable amufe- 
ment only, may not on their firll difappoint- 
ment, lay it down again, on too hafty a 
diffatisfadlion, without the chance of being 
reconciled to proceed, by fome refpite from 
a continual and uninterrupted attention to 
any chargeable abftrufenefs by them, in a 
part, or two— 

As alfo on the hopes to inure even fuch 
the better, to the burthen of a little more 
thought than they might otherwife be in- 
clined to beftow upon it— 



And 



t 3 ] 



Aui> likewlfe becaufe herein afe con- 
tained divers heads that have no direft rela- 
tion to the practice recommended; I have 
Ventured on a fuppofed propriety to divide 
the whole into fhort chapters.™ 

Nor have I reafon to fuppofe other^ but 
that the long reading of dry rules barren of" 
all delightful entertainmentj and in a large 
quantity at once^ would go down tlie fto- 
mach of the moft ftudious devotee this 
way, only as fhyfxit does for the bare bene- 
fit— 

But more of this kind^ may draw upon 
me the charge of an affediation of a for- 
mal IntroduBion to, as in reality I have in^ 
curred that of a prefumptuous Dedication of 
the few following pagos™ 

As to other inaccuracies in my manner 
of writing, I would not willingly have them 
be placed to a flothful incurioufnefs in me— - 
Or a difrefpedful negled of the humble de- 
voir due from me to a candid reader's at- 
tention — -But as I am in jufteft forms nor 
Ikilled, nor ftudious: And purely as my 
B a Country^ 



[ 4 ] 

Country^ unapt and artlefs therein, does 
prompt me on ; and the fhort fyhan tale 
before untold — 

First then, without pretending to have 
m.ore knowledge in the affair of vegetation 
in general, than many others have in com.- 
mon with myfelf, however I am attached to 
this one objed:, and zealoufly entering on 
the fubjeft about it ; yet I fhall not hurry 
the reader on to any of the mechanical 
points, as I think it not proper to go upon 
them, till a necelTary occafion for the fame 
is examined — divers propofitions eftablifhed 
— the nature of my method of performance 
a little difcuffed — reafons given for the pecu- 
liarity of did:ion^ — the delighfulnefs of the 
feafon for the pradlice recommended — and 
various collateral refledlions thereupon urg- 
ed — All which lying in one previous col- 
ledlion, the feveral didaBic parts and their 
more immediate relatives will afterward lie 
the clofer together, and become thereby, 
both the more eafily conceived and remem- 
bred, than if interwoven with fo many cir- 
cumftances, as a novelty of this kind would 
make the greater interlocution. Infomuch 
as fuch feeming round about, will in the 

end 



[ 5 ] 

end be found the very neareft way out of 
the wood we are going into. 

Accordingly the firft propofitlons, "are, 
that tho' the Oak above any other kinds of 
the fylvaticks, has, to outward appearances, 
rejedied the interpofition of any regal doraini- 
on of man, over the peculiarity of it's cufto- 
mary manner of growing, after it is paft the 
largeft of the feminary fizes, (the firft pro- 
per time to fubjed: it to the new pupilage 
here intended) — Again, tho' even before 
fuch time, but more efpecially thence for- 
ward, it has feemingly delighted in lawlefs — 
fpontaneous — and uncontroulable liberty in 
it's habitual modes of vegetation: As if averfe 
to any artful tuition, whereby a greater bodi- 
ly longitude than ufual — more magnificent 
ilrudture — and every way greater and fpeedi- 
er perfedlionof it's nature, might be attained. 
To be yet more comprehenfive — That tho' 
the Oak has not only fuperficially a like felf- 
will'd, inbred impulfe, even invincible dif- 
affedlions, as to vulgar apprehenfion, but has 
really on experience dearly bought, and ever 
unfuccefsful, however oft repeated, eluded 
all attempts of the greateft artifts, forcibly 
to overcome fuch, it's thence tacitly, heredi- 

B 3 tary 



C 6 ] 

tary and indefealible right of oppolition to 
their fond purpofes.— So as to eftablifh uni- 
verfally the mifconceprion of fome unaltera- 
ble and neceflary opponent motion to their 
defigns, impreffed thereon at the creation— 

Yet never thelefs among the many other 
things in terrseculture, which time has 
brought to Hght ; I have taken upon me to 
evidence, that wc have it entirely in our 
pov/er, both to amend the moft orderly and 
regular, as well as to correal the diforder- 
ly motions of the fap in the younger fort 
of growing Oaks 3 and even in fome meafure 
to red;ify the part irregularities of the old— 
And further I am fo exprefs, as to maintain, 
that, there is not the leaft indocility in any 
one thriving young Oak, to the laws of me* 
chanifm — no innate averfion to human art- 
no unalterable felf proclivity, or indepen- 
dency in the form of it's vegetating— and 
nothing like an inherent prerogative of it's 
being therein a free agent — But that all the 
before feeming untoward oppofition and dif- 
affected qualities in it*s nature, to our part 
wifhes and even baffled trials 5 proceeded 
pnly from it's before veiled perfonal and na- 
tural impotence, inward and outward— from 

none 



[ 7 ] 

none at all, or a wrong difcipllne — from un- 
favourable foils — and even in the beft, from 
adverfe accidents, or malevolent feafons 
which, in England^ I may call climatick ; and 
finally that in truth it turns out in the refped: 
alluded to, inftead of being a fovereign agent 
as to it's felf, a helplefs patient. 

It will not be amifs to be carried in mind 
by the attentive, that the vigorous youthful 
terrae filii here meant, and born in defti- 
nated foils, are thofe only to be intitled to 
the higheft preeminence hereafter promifed : 
For as to the unhappy junior indlgeni£ 
brought forth in poor — lean — gravelly — or 
any other impropitious earths ; I fet down 
fuch poltron offsprings, before I proceed any 
further, among the Incur ahili. As I am 
not fetting up a ftage. 

Nor have I " Pills 
" To cure all ills/' ' 

How empirically at firft foever, the extent of 
my p£©-pretended knowledge was arrived at 
in prefcriptions thereto promoting. Nor am 
I dreffing up my garland with artificial flow- 
ers in oppofition to forms natural j but only 
to outvy them. 

B 4 Again, 



[ 8 ] 

Again, as they are a fort of foreign do- 
minions we are entering into, and the ways 
but little levelled, I think it to favour the 
rout I propofe to take, to alledge the pre- 
cedent, that where there has feemed to have 
been an infuperable fuperiority of the powers 
of nature, over thofe of art, yet that the 
latter has almoft, if not entirely got the 
afcendant. As is to be found in that fortu- 
nate Hit which has enriched the whole world 
with fo many fine fruits ; I mean the art of 
engrafting. The firft experiment of which 
kind, might likely have been thought by an 
unenterprifing by-ftander but a hujm futilis ; 
and that at higheft, no other than fome mot- 
ley birth could proceed from the perverfe 
copulation of an apple and a crab ^ like as 
in animals the mule, or any other hetero- 
geneous commixture in fpecie. But the 
different event thereon, as well known to 
every naturalift, has been cried up by fome 
of the learned, as the triumph of art over 
nature : which altho' contended by others to be 
nature's triumph ftill 5 either conftruftion will 
be found to ferve my purpofe without enter- 
ing into a controverfy, that promifes to draw 
ine too far from my purpofe. For tho' I fet 

not 



[ 9 ] 

not myfelf to a mathematical clofenefs, I fliall 
endeavour not to go out of view of my fubjeft. 

Whence, it is proper to moralize a lit- 
tle upon the precedent fpoken of ; as that 
there muft be aifeftions in nature to co- 
operate with the intermediate mechanitian, 
or he will lofe the field inftead of gaining 
an entire conqueft. But how ticklifh in 
themfelves, and how occult to us thofe af- 
fedlions are in the cafe of engrafting, (as far 
as that will weigh) is furprifingly evident, 
from fome experiments I made out of mere 
curiofity. For altho* the cyon of a rich 
tafted fpecies of pear, will with kind paffi- 
on unite with the rough juice of a quince 
ftock 5 Or the cyon of an apple of like ex- 
cellence, with the harfheft crab : Yet will 
neither grow vice verfa ; to be of any dura- 
tion. Viz, a quince upon a lufcious pear, or 
a crab upon a high flavoured apple ftock. 
Thus there is required a conformable power 
in the agent, and an aptitude of difpofition 
in the patient, to make an efFeft in nature 
certain — regular — and lafting.— 

But maxims without examples given, lofc 
half their force. Whence I was induced to 

recite 



[lo] 

recite by way of confirmation, the before 
mentioned refpedlable inllance, againft there 
be occalion to apply it. Which rule of 
judgment not thence alone, but from divers 
other experiments ; I having early formed 
and followed in this whole defign, makes 
me not flip this opportunity to obviate any 
reader's miflrufl:, that I may be about the 
making him wings to fly to the moon, or 
pumps to walk upon unfrozen water. 

My next pundlual obligation is, to inti- 
mate the form of my delivering what I 
have to offer hereon ^ as wherein the weak- 
nefs, or flrength of my arguments will lie. 
In which I find myfelf happily praeadvifed 
by the Honourable Mr. Boyle, Wherefore as 
the fame may be a guide to fome reader's 
caution, or confidence therein, I will recite 
his own words, as they will add dignity to 
the import, 

" Whe N a writer acquaints me only with 
his own thoughts, or conjedlures, with- 
out enriching his difcourfe, with any real 
experiments, or obfervations, if he be 
miflaken in his ratiocination, I am in 
fomc danger of erring with him, and am 

" at 



[ >• ] 

" at leaft like to lofe my time, without re- 
" ceiving any valuable compenfation for fo 
" great a lofs : But if a writer endeavours 

by new and real obfervations, and expe- 
" riments to credit his opinions, the cafe is 

much otherwife ; for let his opinions be 

never fo falfe (his experiments being true) 
" I am not obliged to believe the former, 
" and am left at my liberty to benefit my 

felf by the latter ; and altho' he has er« 
" roneoufly fuperftruded upon his experi- 

meats, yet the foundation being folid, a 
" more wary builder may be much fur- 
" thered by it, in the creftion of a more 
" judicious and confiftent fabrick," 

But he has unhappily in fome other par» 
ticulars, left me to fteer my way in this phy- 
fical ocean without a compafs j and in places 
too where I much want one— Since fhould 
this little piece peradventure make it's appear- 
ance in polite company, that the fame fliould 
have worn a polite drefs of ftile. And what 
perplexes the matter, is, that the modern 
habit and mode of writing, which is moft 
taking with fuch, is not fo to another fett 
of readers, is indeed but partially intelligible. 



3 



The 



C '2 ] 



The auihenfic 2iC?idtmi^n ^nd preci/e phy- 
fiologift, will naufeate a breach upon the 
accuftomed form of didiion in phyficks, next 
to the want of fenfe : But in cafes fo much 
available to a general good, What! if for 
once, cuftom was fuperfeded, and their 
beloved icience (if I may be fo bold as to 
prefume any part herein contained, has a juft 
relation thereto) in like manner as now laWy 
was tortured to fpeak right down EngliJJj — 
Efpecially as they very differently from em- 
pirics of any kind, clothe not their thoughts 
defignedly in jargon, with defign only not 
to be underftood by the vulgar ? 

Ag A I N, of what emolument would fecb- 
meal termSy or philojophical idiomSy (all very 
proper indeed where learned men only are fup- 
pofed to be the readers) be to many who 
have truly gentlemen's eftates, but have not 
had a liberal education 5 and may ftill be the 
happy proprietors of many woods, and have 
the difpofition to plant more ? Who again 
may have no Cyclopedia to apply to for an 
explanation of either the like terms, or idi- 
oms, or the etymologies of Greek and Latin 
words. 

I COME 



[ '3 ] 



I COME next to fhew caufe for a more 
than ordinary plain and intelligible ftile ; as 
I defign this tradt moftly, for a manual for 
the fubordinate agents of Oak proprietors, 
that fhall think fit to put my rules in exe- 
cution. And as fuch agents are likely many 
times to be left to themfelves, I think it 
neceflary, whatever circumlocution I make 
ufe of, that they be inftrudled in every ob- 
vious appendant to their employment — in 
each circumftantial inducement to adlion- — 
in every ground of fuccefs, or difappoint- 
ment — even in all parts of the practice that 
is explainable to their mother fenfe, from 
vifible appearances — Which will fave the 
wood proprietor himfelf much trouble, if I 
had only left him to be their inftrud;or, by 
difcuffing fuch matters written wholly in a 
phyfical form. It is for this reafon alfo that 
I have proceeded on the moft obvious prin-^ 
ciples^ — ^framed my pofitions as far as I am 
able to vulgar apprehenfion — and with, phra- 
feology, as before intimated^, to low capaci- 
ties. — • 

Ye t I do not intend my manner fo abjedt 
thro'out, but that I may hope, tho* not de- 

3 lightfully 



[ X4 ] 

lightfally to inftrudt 5 yet calling to my aid 
the dignity of my fubjefl: and great confe- 
quence thereof 5 to be able to gain a favour- 
able attention of the literate proprietors of 
Oaks in propitious foils : Who difdain not to 
hear from a perfon fo little known, how 
greatly nature may be improved by art • 
And particularly fo, if either the allurement 
of curiofity — the diverlion of philofophical 
experiments — the certainty of future gain— 
the powers of beauty — the admiration of 
grandeur — or the inviting charms of novelty 
have an attracting influence over them.— 

I SHOULD not however have trufted to any 
eloquence of mine, or hardly to my deeds 
therein to revive the dying paffion of ma- 
ny individuals in this age, for promoting any 
way the encreafe of thefe happy treafures j 
were I not otherways aflfured of gaining to 
my lide, the political patriot — the provident 
parent — and the hopeful heir — and with 
them all thofe that are ftudious of perpetu* 
ating the honour of the Britijh flag on the 
high feas ; a thought furely that cannot en* 
ter any Ejiglijhman'^ breafl:, without wifhes 
of it's perpetual continuance, or abhorrence 
of every caufe of it's declenfione But what 

is 



[ 15 J 

is the glory of their native country to fuch 
narrow fouls, whofe defigns in life center 
only in themfelves, and are contrafted to the 
views of their own Ihort exiftence alone ? 

Altho' I have mentioned that incom- 
municated property of the Oak, as more af- 
fiftant to fuch dominion, than any other 
tree, I fliall not from the reverie of a Druid 
take up the time of the difpaffionate that 
way, by entering here on a detail of fuch 
it's fingular merits, or otherwife in the ge- 
neral : Nor would the moft elaborate de- 
fcription of fuch it's fuperior excellencies, 
which I lhall only partially take as they 
come in my way, prove any thing more 
afFefting now, (after that part of my fubjed: 
has been, according to cuftom, almoft ex- 
haufted by Poets) than a trite defcription of 
a fine morning — the month of May— or a 
calm fea. — Altho' the fimiles of defcripti- 
on are now become widely different between 
them, fince nothing new remains to be faid 
of either of the latter, and nothing to their 
effence can be added more by man, as to 
their natural beauty and dignity. 



Still 



[ i6] 

Still neither of them therein Is ftridtly 
the cafe here, if I make good my enfuing 
declarations ; and as far as that endeavour 
of mine will be thought to alter that matter, 
and to raife new ideas of more general per-* 
fedtions of the Oak than before it naturally 
had ^ I accordingly pretend to have made 
fo conformable a fcrutiny into fome prior 
unremedied ill properties of that otherwifc 
moft perfedl plant j on the correfpondency 
of many effedls, whether artful^ or natural y 
or accidental to their efficients — That by 
way of reftification, or remedy, my deter- 
minate propofitions are not lefs, than by a 
new manner of dijbranching and other 
means, to advance fapling Oaks, in our law 
books called Standils^ and in the wood-* 
wards phrafe. Weavers — the like fort that 
were left one fall of the wood before that, 
Seconds — and the higher fall above the lat- 
ter, "thirds — namely fuch as were left Stayi- 
dils two diftindt falls before ; computing fuch 
intervals at about twelve, or fourteen years : 
Or elfewhere growing, of the like proporti- 
on, fo they be not much older in growth, 
altho' as fmall in fize. 

To 



[ ^7 ] 



To the beautiful, infrequent, and profi- 
table heights of Thirty — Forty feet — and, 
Upward — one with another before their 
final head is admitted to begin. But here- 
by, as in part before intimated, is meant, 
fuch young Oaks as grow in our beft wood- 
foils, or other fuch lands applied to their 
ufe. Still in thofe lefs propitious, ad va- 
lorem — Likewife of a proportionate diame- 
tral magnitude, or adaequate circumference 
to their diftinfl; heights^ — Alfo, entirely clear 
on their bodies and void thereon, of any 
too early, or untimely eruption of their fu- 
ture main arms, while under difclpline to 
the contrary — Or, without the disfiguring 
fuperfostations of fmall twig^ high, or low 
on their ftems 3 fo as to be of any continu- 
ance ; on the adhibition of proper reme- 
dies, to fuch too frequent difpofitions- — -The 
feveral mechanical expedients to be per- 
formed, without any injurious violence to 
nature — the performance eafy — and the de- 
^ifeable events certain — Further my defign 
is, to fhew on what malignant caufes. Oaks 
ramify in, or on their bodies fooner and 
lower in England than on the continent : 

C And 



[ i8 ] 

And thereby become of much the lefs clear 
lengths and value — 

1 SHOULD likewife have faid more than I 
propofe on the article of wood planting but 
if I fail to defcribe the improveable nature 
of the Oak, and the great import of it at 
this time, fo as to make it highly engaging j 
then all other arguments I could ufe, would 
become ufelefs— 

But, having feen fufficient, even cogent 
occafion for it in divers parts of England^ I 
have affumed the Druidical liberty, tho' not 
founded only upon the authorities of my 
predeceflbrs, but from late reftified reafon ; 
to urge fome diffuafive arguments againft the 
fufferance of young woods, or groves raifed 
from the acorn, or otherwife, growing too 
long a time 5 before, the moft hopeful ftrip- 
lings, as from more promifing excellence of 
their ftamina vitae, have attained a fuperior 
majefly to others; are feledled to enjoy wholly 
by themfelveSy the vegetating influences of free 
•air — fun — rain — dews — and the inward fuc- 
culence of the genial earth, — I would be 
underftood to mean at larger diftances from 
each other. 

NOTWITH- 



[ »9 ] 



Notwithstanding this fulnefs of col- 
ledled matter^ as it fo defervedly challenges 
a place ; I fhall probably, by way of conclufi- 
on, add, according to my beft endeavour, 
moil of the political arguments pro and con 
on the prefent indifcriminate pradice, in 
many parts of England of wood-grubbing : 
Which with a few, I hope, allowable di- 
greffions, together with the means of the 
reader^s coming, if need, at the full convic- 
tion of the pretended fuccefs of the experi- 
ments to be mentioned, is, the prefent in- 
tended fummary of this treatife — Unlefs a 
poftfcript fhould be added. 

Now, as fo general an altitudinal propor- 
tion of Oaks with clear bodies, and all other 
their defirable properties, attainable by artful 
means alone, is, in this age, moft likely of 
all the articles I have mentioned, to fubjed: 
me to a covert fufpicion of my being there- 
in hyperbolical, from a natural impetus, that 
many older writers have been found to be 
carried away with, in order to fet their fa- 
vourite propofitions, as they thought, in the 
better light ; I fhall therefore, before I enter 
on the culture of the minor offsprings of 

C 2 an 



t 20 ] 

an acorn, firft urge the refledtion, as fome 
may need it, that, nature on occaiion has of 
herfelf alone, for ought is known to us, done 
much more of the kind intimated : Which 
is eafily proveable out of Mr. Evelyn's Sylva 
from numberlefs inftances — But to fave 
time, and avoid as much as I can, being only 
an Eccho \ I fliall mention but a fingle one 5 
which is, of an Oak once growing near 
Rivelyn, that was eighteen yards in length 
without bcugh^ or knot— 

But whoever will give themfelves the 
trouble of turning over that voluminous au- 
thor, on that account, will, I think, wonder 
with me, that on an occafion fo proper, fo 
very curious and copious hiftorian as he was, 
and moreover accounted fo accurate a Geo- 
ponic writer ; fliould give his countrymen 
no manner of light what probably might be 
the extraordinary caufe, of fuch furprifing 
procerity of theirs and clearnefs from all la- 
teral ramuli on their bodies ; and as to their 
magnitude, what he has intimated about the 
nature of the foil they grew in, makes it ftill 
the greater wonder. The clearing up ei- 
ther being a far more material information 
to uSj than that there -had been fuch trees 
i in 



[ 21 ] 

in being ; at leaft had been a . neceflary ad- 
jund: to it. But altho' he has not left us 
that come after him, hopelefs from the gift 
of providence of feeing fome parallels of the 
like again ^ yet if we employ our reafon to 
come at what he thought would be a pro- 
bable means of our like happy enjoyment 
after him, from the imaginary artful aid he 
gave to his young Qaks, we fhall look thro' 
a falfe medium : For he unhappily pradlifed 
not any thing of that kind, but what would 
miflead us— indeed mifchief us— how hap- 
py foever he was in all his other underta- 
kings. 

But however incompleat his fcheme of 
that kind was, Hill, to his credit, his aim 
was wifely political and provident ; in par- 
ticular as to his apprehenfion of the future 
want there would be of fuch grand and af- 
piring Oaks in time to come. And fo far 
the event has fliewn the excellency of his 
fbrelight and judgment : By the prefent rife 
in value of fuch timbers, at Woolwich, Cha- 
tham, and other royal timber yards — By the 
timber merchants feeking and hunting after 
the like in inland counties — And alfo by the 
government and merchants being driven to 

C 3 apply 



[ " ] 

apply to New England for the like in fliew, 
but very unlike in fubftance-— This our navy 
board knows, altho* for good reafons, no 
proclamation is made of it to the Britijb 
Oak proprietor. It is true there is but fpa- 
ring ufe yet made of it in royal {hips, fav-^ 
ing under water where bullets cannot come ; 
yet therein it will do tolerably for channel 
fervice or for the mediterranean : Not at all 
for duration in the weft Indies^ as it is fo 
fubjedt to the worm : But what multitudes 
of private merchant men have been wholly 
built of it at New England within thirty- 
years paft, and been brought up the river, 
and fold as merchandife ? Altho' a fhip of 
Britijh growth of ten years reign, as it is 
called, will outlaft the beft of them new^ 
And as in thofe cafes beft, is beft cheap, 
and as many of his Majefty's very refpedable 
fubjedts lives are dependant thereon, the fame 
is every way a national injury, 

But I have not room here to perfue the 
confequences, and therefore proceed to fay, 
that the wonder is not great, at the mon- 
ftrous confumption of that truly Colojfean 
and Pyramid high fpecies of Oaks, if we 
^pnfider how much the royal fleet and our 

India 



C n ] 

India trade, has been encreafed within fifty 
years paft, as alfo that long fince our India- 
men have equalPd the middle fize of our 
men of war — And again, whatever wife 
laws we owe to our Ancejlors^ that there 
never was fo much as an intended encou- 
raging one, fince our Edw. III^ to preferve 
an affluence of this tutelar plant of Great 
Britain and its dominions— As to the fha- 
dow of a penal law, made by Henry Vllly 
and perhaps meant to fuch purpofes y it 
feems to have been ill concerted at firft ^ and 
to be fure has been ineffedhial ^ and for good 
reafons may poflibly hereafter, be fhewn to 
have been unjuft — At leaft is thought fo 
n*ow by many, fince the circumftances of 
the cafe are fo very much altered fince his 
time— 

But again my bufinefs at prefent being 
only to open the caufe 5 I fhall omit defcant- 
ing on either parliamentary fcheme of that 
kind, till I find myfelf readier and more pre- 
pared to enter on moft of the arguments 
pro and con, about the article of woodgrub- 
bing; and only here on that cafe put the 
queftion — ^What would any new reftraining 
ftatute, to the like import, avail ? whereby 

C 4 one 



Q 



C H ] 

one neighbour is expeded to turn informer 
ag^inft another — And as feveral men of 
good fortunes have joined their hands in the 
flaughter of very good woodlands (I cannot 
fay for altogether miftaken reafons) their e- 
guals, for no rev^ard, v^ill not, and their 
inferiors dare not take the law^ as it is called, 
againft them — • 

As that is in good part the prefent, and 
will alfo moft probably be the future cafe 
on any legal compulfion to a greater prefer- 
vation of this plant, and as few parliamen- 
tary laws have premiums annexed to the ob- 
fervers of them : Application can only be 
made, or will beft be made to fome happier 
expedient, that will yield a more effed:ual 
fandion to fuch a reftraint, than what a fcep- 
ter by way of punifhment can give. 

And what can that better be, to come at 
leaf!; from a private hand, than by making 
the fame evidently by other means, the in- 
ter ejl of the wood proprietor himfelf ? — To 
which end, what more likely expedient can 
any way be found, than one, which by con- 
tributing to make the altitudinal proportion 
gf Oaks^ with their proper appurtenances, a 

doubla 



[ 25 ] 

double clear length they ordinarily grow to, 
advances their value a full third ? indeed 
much more- — Which may be thus under- 
flood, namely, Oaks full fixty, or feventy 
feet in length, including their capital fpires, 
whence ilTue their arms y which contain 
each above a lingle load, but the more, the 
better j and the main bodies of them clear 
from ramifications great, or fmall forty foot 
long, or more ^ will fetch at leaft one third 
more price than any much jhorter coarje 
trees of like meafurement. ; either for the ufe 
of the Shipwright, Carpenter, Cooper, Lath, 
or Pale render : The truth of which compu- 
tation, I think no body will go about to 
deny. 

How then, to train up young Oaks clear 
in bodies as a warlike fpear ^ far more in 
number infinitely, than would be otherwife^ 
and which from accidents hereafter named, 
would even in good foils be frequently the 
fhorter and more knotty therein ; fo as to 
arrive at the fecond bell lengths mentioned ; 
and again the yet more thrifty and naturally 
afpiring of themfelves, to the very higheft of 
all ; is, the bufinefs in chief of the two, or 
three next enfuing chapters to evidence firft by 
jpeafon. By 



[ 26 ] 



By natural, I defire moftly to be under- 
Hood, the common or ordinary growth of 
the Oak. 

It remains only in order to induce all 
wood proprietors of this kind, to the en- 
fuing pradice, to urge the recommendation 
of it, that it takes them difengaged from a- 
ny other pleafure, or bufinefs of the feafon : 
For when all gentleman-like diverlions ru- 
ral, or city pro tempore are ceafed ; as when 
nor operas — nor plays — nor mafquerades— 
nor fox-hunting — nor hare— nor the all mur- 
dering piece — nor fetting net come in com- 
petition — when even wine is needful only 
to kill the time, not warm the chilling 
blood — the feafon for the enfuing enter- 
prife comes in to fill up fuch vacations. For- 
tunate Interlude ! 

Lastly, thefe gardens of the Deity's 
own making, as an ingenious foreigner calls 
naturally planted woods, yield to the work- 
ers in them after this manner, moft agree- 
able views adapted, to every ftage of life ; 
for if the paffions of human nature are not 
altered fince the great Latin poet's time, the 

old 



[ 27 ] 

old man's heart is gladden'd with the after 
profped of fome favourite Oak of his then 
rearing up, 

-feris faBura nepotibus umbram. 

The young gentleman that embarks in thefc 
operations as foon as he is of age, or a little 
after, on pdants but twenty, or twenty five 
feet high, from the ground to their fummits, 
and growing in tender — fucculent — un£hious 
foils — in cafe he lives to fixty years himfelf, 
has the never dying pleafure all that while, 
to find them encreafing to, and at lafl en- 
creafed to the better half, between thirty 
and forty feet high, clear in body to their 
jSrft boughs : Altho' it muil be treble and 
quadruple his own age, that gives them their 
finifhed magnitude : But hence in the in- 
terim refults a new joy, mz. That fuch an 
agreeable transfiguration of his Oaks from 
what they otherwife would have been, will, 
fiiperior to the common endearments of he- 
reditary polTeflions of the like, engage his 
afFedtions ; as having a kind of new exift- 
ence owing to himfelf by fuch fingular modi- 
fication i and will leave a more pleafing as 
well as more lafting memorial of him. to 
J his 



[ 28 ] 

his pofterity, than the fcuts of fo many 
hares, or the fkins of fo many foxes. 

I PRESUME therefore I have, on all ac- 
counts, a juft occafion to renew the advice to 
the gentlemen in particular laft fpoken of, 
given to the like, by Pet, Bellonius^ in his 
NegleBd Jlirpium culturd : 

" Agite, O Adolefcentes, et antequam Ca^ 
" nities vobis obrepat ; Stirpes jam alueritis, 
quae vobis, cum infigni utilitate, deledtati^f 
onem etiam adferent/' 

I HOPE it is from the influence alfo, the 
aforefaid confiderations offer'd by me have 
upon fuch a Reader j that he thinks me 
too long before I proceed on the praftical 
parts. 

But if any Gentleman's paffion has been 
cooled this way, becaufe as it muft be own- 
ed, that Oak timber does not yet bear a 
Price proportioned to the real fcarcity of 
it — his affedlions thereto may reafonably 
be doubled, if he is the happy man I wifh 
him; upon the reflecflion, that when fuch 
Proprietors have fold off their Stock, who 

have 



[ 29 ] 

have been reduced thereto from the great 
reduftions made upon their other Eftates, by 
Taxes thereon, and divers other neceffaries 
of Hfe, or from the fruits of their own 
luxurious living; that is, to be plain, when 
neither the Lords of the Admiralty, or the 
great Merchants, and their agents the Tim- 
ber buyers, no longer have it in their power 
to take advantage of the remaining Timber 
fellers. — And how notorioufly this was the 
cafe of the neceffitous Sellers thereof, after 
the fall of Southfea Stock, is needlefs for 
me to fay — But, too many like exigences', 
tho' from different caufes, are yet remaining. 
Yet when the Tables come to be turned, 
and the needy Sellers have done felling — and 
the other will not part with any but what it 
is good hufbandry to take down, which will 
not near anfwer the demands of the Buyers- 
then fuch neceffitated Buyers muft lie at the 
mercy of the then Proprietors — And this in 
all cafes of marketable commodities, is no 
more than what happens every day in life. 

Among other things, having done with 
what credenda are at prefent needful ; I pro- 
ceed next on different Heads, mixt with 
fome agenda, . 

CHAP, 



C 3P ] 




CHAPTER II. 

NO W before I enter on the Specific 
education, that I have to recom^ 
mend of the young princes of the 
woods alluded to j I think it a neceflary pre- 
liminary thereto, to difclofe what former 
difcipline has mifcarried, and wherefore, in 
order to advance the general comelier afped 
—more longitudinal cxtenfion— and more 
ufeful forms of their bodies in time to 
come— 

I SHOULD have avoided calling in quefti- 
on again, the name of fo truly worthy a 
gentleman, as Mr. Evelyn^ were it not that 
he was one of the moft enterpriling, and 
withal creditable naturalift that way, of his 
time ; and therefore alfo that the fum and 
fubftance of the opinions of his moft know- 
ing cotemporaries, may be coUedted out of 
his writings, on almoft all vegetable fub- 
jefts. And indeed the lame whether on 
the Green boufe, or the Melomere, the Gar^ 

deny 



[ 3^ I 

deriy or the Orchat^ or the Wood^ contain fo 
many, and fo confiderable improvements, 
that he has left us little other employment, 
than to corred: a few of his overfights. But 
when 'Wife men err, they commonly greatly 
err. The error of his falPn to my fhare to 
challenge, from the unaccountable filence 
thereon, of all fylvatick writers fince his 
time, I muft call a dormant, or latent one : 
Yet the bare finding fault, without offering 
ways and means of its reformation, would 
never alone have become an agreeable pro- 
vince to me againft him. Thus, the firfl 
method he took was, to equip his arborator 
(as he not improperly calls him) with a 
hook — handbill — hatchet — -fa^w — broad chif- 
fel and mallet^ to deftroy thereby, the firfl: 
tier of boughs of any young Oak, in order 
to encreafe its future beautiful altitude. 

And there is good reafon to think, this 
was not his praftice fingly, in the period 
of time he lived in, and perhaps long be- 
fore; it being plain by his writings, that 
he imbibed his. notions of the efficacy of 
thofe inftruments to the purpofes piention- 
ed, from one Mr. Lawfan^ a preceding and 
with him, favourite fylvan Author. This 

appears 



C 32 ] 

appears from his recapitulating thofe max^ 
ims which he in a traft of his, fome time 
before publifhed, in relation to forefts and 
woods — All ages by rules and experience^ 
do confent to a pruning and lopping of 
trees 5 and if a tree declines from the end 
we delire it fhould not, that man may, 
*^ nay muft corred: it by art." By which 
this very authoritative Mr. Law/on muft ne- 
cefTarily mean Oaks 5 they being the general 
growth of woods and forefts. It appears 
likewife in another part of that author, what 
led him into that mal-praftice, viz, the do- 
cility he had obferved in Elms^ AfpSy and 
Hollies ; to which he might have added the 
wild Cherry tree and many others, little or 
nothing ramified in their bodies, by fuch 
lateral amputations : Yet as unlike to the 
Oak in that particular, as to conquered na- 
tions 'y that fail not to revenge the infolence 
of tyrannical invafion and arbitrary force, by 
frequent rebellions, 

Mr. Evelyn notwithftanding, becoming 
a fecond to this good old man, (as he called 
him) , and forgetting the motto of the learned 
fociety he was a member of — " NuUius in 
verba*'— fet out in his Sylva^ to demonftrate 

the 



[33] 

the reafonablenefs of this Mr. Lawfon^s no- 
tions, which were now become his own ; 
and in order thereto, fo far advances very 
rightly, in faying, " every diminution is a 

reinvigoration of a plant's juice, feldom 
" otherwife arriving to their full altitude 
Again — " it is certain that trees governed 
" by this method, will encreafe their value 

more, in ten or twelve years, than fuch 
" as are negleded in forty/' A large com- 
putation to be thence made ! ftill to thefe 
notions he accommodated his practice « 

By this, and like wife by other circum-* 
ftances, it appears that both of them had 
fallen into the very fame mifcondudt, that 
my Lord Bacon accufes a greater man than 
either of them, viz, Ariflotle^ who, fays he, 
" did not ufe and employ experiments, for 

the erefting of his theories, but having 
" arbitrarily pitched his theories, his man- 

ner was to force experience to fuffragate 
*^ and yield countenance to his precarious 
" propofitions/'~But to demonftrate their 
fuppofed reafonablenefs of fuch philofophy, 
neither of thefe two good old men referred 
their readers to any vijible inflances of their 
fucceflcs of that kind of pradlice on the 

D Oak I 



C 34 ] 

Oak ; and I am apprehenfive neither of 
them lived two years out to fee the event 
of it. And as it has been faid, Homer had 
not been fo confiderable a Foet^ had he 
been a copyift of others labours 5 fo I may 
fay Mr. Evelyn had not been fo bad a Natu^ 
ralijl^ had he not by copying again in as 
bad a manner, as after Mr. Lawjon for pre- 
cedents, alighted on one lefs parallel than 
elms, poplars, or hollies, for his juftificati- 
on of Oak hough-lopping by unhappily 
mifapplying fome verfes of Fir gi I in Geor- 
gic 2d, which accordingly he quotes for 
his authority 5 viz, 

tunc Jiringe comas y tunc brachia tonde^ 

{Ante reformidantferrum)tunc denique dura 
Exerce imperia^ et ramos compefce Jiuentes, 

The verfes immediately preceding theft, 
being 

Inde ubi jam validis ample xa Jtirpibus ulmos 

Exierint — 

The Poet meaning vifes. 

Or if that was not his mifconftruffion, it 
was ftill as great a miftake, to found general 

maxims 



[ 35 ] 

maxims on particular cafes. Which how- 
ever if taken either way, is the lefs to be 
wondered at in this ingenious countrymaa 
of ours, as fo great a foreigner and withal 
vegetable naturalift, and of a nation fam'd 
for their correclnefs in all treatifes of that 
kind, has fall'n ;into the Hke mifapplicati- 
on, feemingly of the beforementioned verfes 5 
I mean Rapin • I know not otherv/ife how 
to account for his poetry, than as a para- 
phrafe, or tranfpofition only of Virgil'^ 
words ; tlius englifhed by Mr. Gardiner. 

Soon as in ftrength advancing ev'ry year. 
The trees on deeper roots their bodies rear. 
The fwain no proud exuberance allows. 
But wifely prunes the too luxuriant boughs. 
Left with unequal weight the trunk fhould 
bend, 

And all the fap in ufelefs branches fpend. 
Thus early lopt^ while tender yet and young. 
They rife from earth more obftinate and 
ftrong. 

And this he inculcates under the article of 
Groves, 

There is, and ever was a latent tyran- 
ny in the fingle injundlions of great men ; 

D z and 



[ 36 ] 

and tho* this may not wholly filence any 
diftruft, it flops a long while the oppofition 
of inferiors, to their opinions. And here- 
to I was the more enflaved, as Mr. Evelyn 
not confining himfelf wholly to his didtates, 
fell upon arguments of different kinds, that, 
if poffible, fome one might hold good ; 
but deducible all the while out of general 
maxims of his own, and rules of pruning : 
Whereupon he goes on and fays " Nothing 
can be more neceffary in order to prun- 
" ing, than the knowledge and nature of 
*^ the courfe of the fap, which not being 
univerfally agreed on, does lead our ar- 
borators into many errors and miftakes 
But how promiffory foever, this declaration 
feemed, of his going about to inftrud: them 
right, he prefently after fhifts off his readers 
to be better informed by our Dr. Grew^ Mai- 
pighius^ and Monlieur de la ^intifiye. And 
I only blame him that he did not add 3 but 
you will at laft find they can tell you Uttle 
more of this difficult matter than I can my 
felf. Which at the expence and lofs of 
time, upon my looking into their works, I 
found true. 



Being 



C 37 ] 



Being then my felf no adept, I was 
unwilling to go on my own little experi- 
ence ; and as yet not qualified diredly to 
approve, or reject a practice recommended 
by fo great a triumvirate as Rapin, Evelyn^ 
and Law/on^ I gave my felf up implicitly 
to the guidance of fuch leaders ; more efpe- 
cially on account of the vogue Mr. Evely?2*s 
works at that time of day had ^ as part of 
the fame wxre WTOte under the fulfrages of 
the Royal Society^ and fome at the inftigati- 
on of the CommiJJioners of the Navy, So 
not dreading an ignis fatuus to light me 
onward, to work I went to perform the 
Execution y Purgation^ Coercifion^ and Re- 
cijion \{ot that was the form of fcholarly 
writing in his timie) of the under branches 
of fome young Oaks, the height of whofe 
bodies I was defirous to advance, by the im- 
mediate help of the inftruments recommend- 
ed. But tho' gay were my expedlations, and 
highly pleafing my hopes ; yet I found fuf- 
ficient reafon not to repeat thofe trials above 
two feafons \ as fo many ramufculi like 
Hydra'^ heads fprung out thereupon, near 
the feveral amputations. 



If 



[ 3B ] 



If it were material to evince mv further 
diligent inquiries therein, I fliould alfo fay, 
that I confulted likewife Mr. Lewenhoek^ a 
great naturaliil in thcfe affairs ; yet found 
not one kind Ariadne to help me out of the 
labyrinth I was got into. But that dark 
and gloomy, was turned into a lively prof- 
peel of m.y being, thence extricated, by vir- 
tue of a treatife which a little while after 
fell into my hands, wrote by Mr. Cook^ a 
folid and fenfible writer, and a gardiner to 
the then Eurl of Ejjex ; upon the right or- 
dering of foreil trees, among many other 
articles. Who thinking Mr. E\:ely?i's me- 
thod of pruning Oaks to be faulty only in 
point of ti/}:e^ became thereupon verv fan- 
guine, that by an early fummer pruning of 
the boughs, that is, after the rapid flow of 
the lap in the fpring had fpent it's felf in 
fail blown leaves , the remainder illuing up 
the body Vv'ould not recoil fo, as ever after 
to make any eiteclual effort to a ramificati- 
on little, or much near the parts difmem- 
bered. Inftead of which, on my reading 
his bock carefully, I found, to mv mortifi- 
cation, by his ovv'n confeffion, that he was 
in the end propofed miffaken. For altho' 
2 he 



[ 39 ] 

he perceived no fudden ramous fuperfoetation 
any time the following fummer, upon his 
kind of amputations ; yet in autumn had 
he carefully infpedted, he might have per- 
ceived many little buds peeping out of the 
bark for a further protrufion the next year ; 
As confequently in the enfuing fpring he 
found to his coft they did. But his In- 
duftrious" hand not fparing for any pains^ to 
gain credit to fuch a thought, and new ope- 
ration of his own, did at length from year 
to year, difcharge fuch trees of their multi" 
tudes of little germens ; probably by fome 
like inftruments as mentioned by M.v, Eve- 
lyn ; fo long I fuppofe as their heads were 
grown again to fuch an amount larger, as 
the quantity of boughs cut oif, might be 
computed at : Whereby their fummlts were 
in a condition to receive all the fap which 
their roots were able to fend up. Yet I 
Ihould fay only, in a better condition. 

But Hercules' s cleaning the Augean fta- 
ble, or any other like atchievements of his^ 
might not have proved a greater labour, 
than clearing the bodies of three or four 
thoufand vigorous Oaks, on fuch an occa- 
fion^ of their germinations. I confefs be- 

D 4 ing 



[40] 

ing then young, and not void of the conceit 
that frequently attends thofe of my age, I 
hoped to be capable of making fome fuper- 
ftru£ture on Mr. Cook's notions, that might 
ftand i but all to no purpofe. The fliining 
fallacy ftrait as a meteor difappearing. The 
mifcarriages of thefe two latter very inge- 
nious adventurers herein, with my felf, thro* 
them, and I doubt not, I might fay of a 
hundred more, fufficiently fhew what ab- 
horrence nature had to every bold invader of 
her dominions of that kind ; and that fhe 
would as it were revenge fuch infults, and 
elude the defired effeds of fuch violence. 
My continued obfervance of which pro- 
ducing the refledlion, that tho' vegetating 
matter has not a felf determining power as 
man, who is endued with free agency ; yet 
that in fome nice cafes in the Honourable 
Mr. Boyle's language, it is adiaphorous, and 
impafiive to the ends of fuch fecondary 
motion, which upon a vain prefumption of 
our fuperior powers we attempt to give it. 
And that from fome prior — latent — inhe- 
rent — motion and energy (of what I may call 
here) it's own. 



I SHOULD 



[ 4x ] 

I SHOULD be glad upon this occafion 
not to renew the remembrance of my want 
then of a readier apprehenfion to attain 
what I defired ; did I not imagine a formal 
narrative of my fo flow a progrefs, might the 
better ground fome particular perfons in 
the fucceeding praftice. The foregoing bad 
fuccefs therefore, kept me (if I may fo call 
it) in great awe^ and laid an embargo on 
that confidence in my future better fortune, 
which my forward zeal might otherwife 
have poflelTed me with ^ and I refted from 
all further aftion of that kind for feveral 
years. Thus three quarters vanquifhed, yet 
wholly loth to yield my felf viftim to de- 
fpair : I in the interval neglefted not entire- 
ly, reflefting what poffibly might be the 
phyfaal caufe of our difappointments. And 
confidering I could lofe no great credit if I 
failed again, and that I might lofe the lefs, 
I kept my defigns as much as I could to my 
felf private as could be, or where known: 
Yet that, fuccefs would juftify the moft un- 
promifing prefumption j I kept my inclina- 
tion alive, for fome further trials, when 
better reafon fliould invite me. But I had 
to my coft already found, that there was no 

dired 



[ 42 ] 

direft road to the knowledge of what I want- 
ed, from any the greateft author, and that 
it was no way again to be attained by Hving 
preceptors, tho' it might haply from fome 
lucky and favouring inferences and deduc- 
tions, from fomething that had the fortu- 
nate appearance of a parallel illuftration. 

But however tardy the advances were 
that I made, confidering what a great (hare 
of thought m^y application had engrofled ; I 
was thence fet fomething forward again by 
my falling cafually into a way of thinking, 
but, long fince made familiar to the world, 
'oiz. That, the fap of a plant in fummer 
more efpecially, in every part of it, both 
within the earth and without, does afcend 
ordinarily upward, with no unlike motion, 
as the fpirituous fum.e does in a Jiill^ or lim- 
beck fet to work by the force of artificial 
fire : That (for the different intentions of 
nature) the moll; volatile parts of the lympha 
afcend to the upper parts of the tree — i\nd 
the more fluid portion thereof is converted 
into leaves — while what is thinner yet than 
fuch, is abforbed by folar attraftion, into 
the circumambient air — And what is not 
quite fo fubtile, or tenuious as to be either 

way 



[ 43 ] 

way fo appropriated, but is a little more cor- 
pufcular, is formed into wood branches— 
And the yet more infpiffated parts, and 
thereby the flower to afcend, do adhere to 
the outer coats of the body, main arms, and 
roots — And in mofl: trees become aggluti- 
nated thereto in the form and fhape, of a 
folid ring of wood. 

Building on which foundation, and 
having alfo colled:ed fome further materials 
of obfervation, out of Sir Kenelm Digiy's 
treatife of Bodies ^ I continued to trace, 
tho* with a fnail's motion, the natural caufes 
of the efFefe alluded to, on hough-lopphig. 
And firft what required not the leafl: inge- 
nuity to difcover, but only the chance of 
fo eafy a way of canvafling the cafe, was, 
the refledlion every way fo very obvious ; 

That on a precipitate amputation of the 

branches of an Oak, the accuftomed cur- 
rent of the afcending fap is unexpectedly (if 
I may fo call it) to the tree, ftopt, and 
in a very abrupt manner in fuch parts — And 
the fame being got pretty high therein, to 
ferve the occafions of the wonted call for 
it, and likewife on it's obftrudion, being 
unable to return to the roots again by reafon 

of 



C 44 ] 

of the fupervening afflux of more ; which 
now mull be called a redundancy — And 
the whole having neither leifure nor power, 
fufficient to extend the capillary velTels above 
for an adaequate reception, which were as 
full as they could hold before — ^my head, 
which was nothing fo full of fenfe, ftill be- 
gan to conclude, that under fo great ne- 
ceffitous diftrefs and as it were teeming la- 
bour of the fap, fo great might reafonably 
be the elaftic power thereof, and fo violent 
the force of the rarified air therein; that 
like as an impetuous current that is ftopt in 
one place breaks out in another 3 fo likewife 
the fap in that cafe muft and will find new 
vents 'y which commonly prove to be la- 
teral ; and throw out there, under the di- 
reftion of nature, in fome parts fingle ger- 
mens, and in others fo copious, as to re- 
femble a Virgultum 5 whofe future fubfift- 
ence upon an eftimate would be found equi- 
valent to the boughs cut off. This neceffity 
of nature on a further refleftion appeared the 
more evident to me, that, if this did not 
happen on fuch arbitrary loppings^ the cafe 
would ftill be the worfe with fuch tree — 
For either thereupon, by an occafional ftrong 
rarefaftion and ebullition of the fap, and the 

parts 



[ 45 ] 

parts of it*s body being ceffible longitudi- 
nally, it would burft open, which wood- 
wards call fcoakering — Or otherwife upon 
a ftagnation (which would equal the ana- 
logous event of the ftagnation of blood in 
animals) would enfue inftant death. A cafe 
which frequently happens to old pollards, 
where the bark is too thick to admit of the 
kinds of ramifications I wanted fo much to 
guard againft. But yet I had gained no- 
thing by thefe refleftions, excepting that 
our manner of procefs had been too violent. 
For ftill to difcover, at leaft to prevent the 
mifchief thereupon, and how to find out 
the right falutary manner of dijbranching an 
Oak J I was yet as much at a lofs, as thofe 
that go groping in the twilight only of 
reafon. 

I HAD, it is true, the great example of 
Sir Francis Bacon in my cafe, to enter on 
fome new experiment or other, and per- 
ceived how many fair hints were to be col- 
lected from his Centuries^ for my manner j 
as alfo the encouragement how many truths 
before hidden he had unveiled to future 
ages \ and likewlfe to my comfort, that even 
he, attributed his fucceffes more to his <^ 

fiduity^ 



[ 46 ] 

fiduity^ than his own perfonal ingenuity. 
Still I could not but regret, that the plant 
alluded to, inftead of fome others, had not 
been the primary objedt of fome of his ex- 
periments. 

But in his time there was no fcarcity of 
all valuable dimenlions of fuch timber, and 
little furmife of a neceffity of laying up in 
ftore ; as the architect or fhipwright could 
every where then, find what they thought 
proper to make ufe of. Which probably 
was the reafon, that no number of natura- 
lifts then, or in times immediately follow- 
ing, fet about any refearches of this kind, 
or if any difcoveries relating to a juft cul- 
ture of the Oak, were made by any fuch, 
they were thrown into their graves with 
them, and might thence be placed among 
PanciroUus's loft arts of antiquity. Indeed 
all experimental knowledge in reference to 
vegetation in general, that was out of the 
common road, was then, and for fome time 
after in it's infancy. Of late indeed it is 
moft agreeably to be obferved that in re- 
lpe<S to fome other particular objefts of ve- 
getation ; that many befides whofe immedi- 
ate profeffion it is, both Gentlemen^ and 

Clergy y 



[ 47 ] 

Clergy^ as they have had leifure and an ap- 
propriate genius, have joined their refearches 
therein, and withal have not envied the 
pubHck the knov^ledge of their ingenious 
difcoveries. 

Still any fuccefsful attempts about the 
culture of this juft pride of the Britannick 
IJle have at leaft remained unpublifhed ; 
and the neglected Oaken minor has beea 
left to the Tuition of ruftic hinds and wood- 
wards, or what is better, to none at all. 
Therefore without danger of being thought 
arrogant in thinking my felf their fuperior ; 
as 1 4cnew all the fhelves and fands on which 
they had been flranded ; I kept ftill on, 
reafoning with my felf; that, I ought in 
fome vtry mild and gentle manner to perfue 
what I defired ; as that dame nature^ like 
-a coy nymph, might poffibly be gained by 
foft addreffes, altho' fhe would be forced by 
none. Perfuant to this, I thought it my 
bufinefs not to make my advances to her, 
as one fuperior in rude ftreogth alone ; but 
obfequioufly to watch each paffion in her, 
to follow her thro' all her fecret v^indings 
and turnings, and to order all my motions, 
and carefTes to her, in conformity to her 

own 



[ 48 ] 

own general motions. And what obvioufly 
occurred to my obfervations thereon, were 
the gradual tranfitions, nature ufually makes 
from one thing to another ; whether it be 
in afcenlion, or declenlion. To inftance 
in the flow growth, or declination of Be- 
ings, whether animate or inanimate ; like- 
wife in many other of her operations; as 
in the rife and fall of the year ; her foft gra- 
dation from day, to night, and 'uice verfd. 
And in many other inflances, how flow her 
pace, and how deliberate her fleps i for as 
yet I was got no higher. 

But that my fteps may not be thought 
much too deliberate in the defcription of my 
humble imitation of her ; the fpring after I 
was efl:ablifhed in the foregoing principles ^ 
A time when the wood born warblers with 
their mufic fail not to welcome in, the pro- 
prietors of their verdant Orchejira's : I then 
projefted in a wood, to deftroy, kill, or 
mortify the untimely, or too early iflfuing 
forth of the underboughs, feemingly defti- 
nated for everlafting arms, of fome fapling 
Oaks ; by what, I know not how better to 
exprefs it, than by a lingering — confump- 
tive — abolition of the faid boughs ; in order 
t2 bv 



C 49 ] 

by a very dilatory mortification to them, to 
Gccafion an almoft imperceptible lofs to their 
parent,— 

As I had ever efieemed Virgil a Georgia 
philofopher, whofe maxims were worthy of 
attention in the utmoft latitude, I thought 
fit much to vary one to my purpofe, and 
run the hazard of a tranfapplication thereof, 
if I may not be cenfured for the expreffi- 
on i which was 

* ■ ^ feneris cotifuefcere multum eji. 

For altho' dire neceffity and poverty of in-^ 
vention obliges me on occafion to borrow 5 I 
am above ftealing a thought. It is moreover 
fure, I had not underftanding enough, ac- 
cording to Mr. hock^ to jildge whether my 
reflex ideas were true, or falfe ; yet fondly 
prefumed, what the glimmering light of my 
reafon could not help me to, the know- 
ledge of, fortune might ^ and to which no 
body had more right. 

Accordingly the defired ifliie, with 
/uccefs however, if not with likelihood ^ I 
hit upon by a partial decorticating the faid 

E under- 



C 50 ] 

'underboughs in the manner fhortly follow- 
ing. But I think it will not be amifs to re- 
late firfr, that the propereft feafon for that 
operation, is that part of the fpring when 
the bark, ?.-S the phrafe is, runs well ; and 
it is to be obferved, that the fap in young 
Oaks, will not ufually run fo foon as in old ; 
and in the former, I often find it will run 
till midfummer, and even till har\xft after a 
lliower of rain, and not infrequently at mi- 
chaelnias, if the feafon be warm and fliowery. 
Which length of time, will be of great ufe 
to thofe who have many, and are difpofed 
to fubjecl them to this difcipline. 

1 Aivi now come to lay, that it is at ei- 
ther of fuch times my pradice is, to take oft 
the bark of the boughs, I intend to deftroy, 
clofe to the body of the tree, if any thing 
clofer on the underJJde of the boughs than 
the upper, the reafon of which will foon 
be found by an obferving deiarker. To 
perform which rightly, the bark of every 
laid bough clofe to the body of the tree 
fhould be cut thorough, with a knife fome- 
what hooking, to the very w^ood quite 
round, in the firft place : next another cir- 
cular cut mufl be made at a diftance in pro- 
I portion 



C 

portion to the fize of each bough, and the 
bark taken off, by making a right lined flit 
between the two circular cuts; which by 
the preffure of the thumb will readily reave 
off. The meafure of the lengths the feveral 
boughs are to be debarked (altho' I never 
confined my felf to a mathematical exadl- 
nefs therein, being — Such as are about the 
bignefs of a man's forefinger, or a little 
fmaller, two inches and a half 5 that is, to 
be as plain as I am able^ I take off the bark 
two inches and a half long upon that end of 
the bough next the tree, in manner afore- 
faid. — Such again as are of the fize of the 
ordinary handle of a whip \ the bark muft 
be taken off fomething longer — And fuch 
as are of the bignefs of a pitchfork fliaft, or 
ftale, four inches at leaft in length : Beyond 
which proportion of the bignefs of boughs, 
I do not frequently attempt to deftroy any. 
Which practice tho' I do not recommend, 
yet neither do I deny, but it may be fafely 
done, and where even the amputation of a 
large ^xm of an Oak (fo it be at that time in 
a growing ftate,) is neceflary for the conve- 
nience of fome 1;//?^, or otherwifc, I hope 
to be able to propofe expedients, whereby 
there will very little damage, if any, accrue 
E z there- 



[ 52 ] 

therefrom. Before I proceed further, it is 
proper to notify one relative to the operati- 
on more, and that is, that whatever very 
fniall boughs, or twigs there are immediate- 
ly under, or over the boughs debarked, they 
fhould not be meddled with that feafon^, 
at leaft but in part ; but of which more 
hereafter, with fuller directions. 

To relate next, the efpecial confequence's 
of the before mentioned operation ^ the very 
fmalleft of the debarked boughs, ufually die 
the beginning of the fecond year, and fome 
of them fhew their mortality nearly ap* 
proaching the fir ft — -Thofe as big as the 
handle of a whip die in courfe a little after— 
And thofe as big as the handle of a pitch- 
fork, fometimes live, yet but rarely, to the 
third year. I fay indeed live, but in no 
time latterward, do any of them ufually 
vegetate, fo as to encreafe in bignefs, or 
length 'y but are able only to throw out 
leaves from buds before formed, and thofe 
not full blown. But no certain period of 
their perifliing can be affigned. For as the 
fummers following prove moift, or dry, 
warm, or cold, and as they ftand more or 
lefs expofed to fun, or drying winds, they 

die 



[ 53 ] 

die fooner, or later : But care mufl: be taken 
that the bark runs well, for if any part 
thereof is left on the wood branches^ in 
cafe they fhould not need a fecond operati- 
on the year following, fuch at leaft will be 
a long while languifliing before they to- 
tally die, 

Su-CH has been the general event of fuch 
trees, and fuch feafons and years, as I have 
pradlifed in : But if they in other cafes 
prove various — As likewife the foils — fome 
little difference in the iffue, there probably 
may he. 

I PROCEED to clear up and illuftrate,^ 
as well as I am able, fome further confe- 
quences hereto, vifible, and to offer a folu- 
tion of fome phaenomena intended to be 
mentioned : But my praftical being more 
than my literate knowledge, I fhall not ma» 
gifterialiy affert any thing is, or muft be fo, 
for the reafons I give^ and cannot be other- 
wife : But that it is reafonable t$) me, the 
fa£t was fo occafioned. And wherein I ap^ 
ply to outward evidence, k fhall be where 
there is the lead likelihood of the fallacy of 
fenfe : Yet withal I take upon me to affir,m 

E 3 again, 



[ 54 i 

again, that the fadts are true, to which my 
allegations, or folutions are applied, let the 
latter be never fo defedlive. 

The firft of the kind mentioned that 
comes in courfe, is that of a bark-ring ; not 
any of thofe mentioned by that moft inge- 
nious and Reverend, Dr. Hales in his ve- 
getable Statics ; neither cited at leafl: for 
the like purpofe, nor as I take it occafioned 
from the fame caufe, This I allude to, be- 
ing of more m.aterial confequence to the de- 
barker : The fame here meant being formed 
by nature, continuous to the body of the 
tree, at the extremity of the bough debark- 
ed ; which, as I take it, is fo formed by the 
following means- — The portion of fap that 
ufually afcended between the bark and the 
body of the tree, by correfponding pipes in- 
to the bough, before it was debarked^ being 
on the aforefaid operation ftopt, does, by 
reafon of fuch obftrudtion, employ it felf 
to form a protuberant circle of bark, clofe 
and adjoining to the body of fuch tree. See 
Figure of the Tree. And herein may be 
obferved no unlike operation, to what na- 
ture pradiifes in cafes of wounds in animals : 
For the fap by which this ring is formed, 

ferves 



[ 55 ] 

lervcs the debarker's purpofe, as well as if it 
had been naturally fent to his aid^ only as 
a balfam to heal the outward wound he had 
made, (in what I may call thro' the ikin 
of the tree) The faid ring being thereto, 
ready and preffing to clofe up the fame, a- 
gainft fuch time, as the bough being entire- 
ly dead, is found proper to be fawn, or cut 
off clofe thereto. By this means free li- 
berty is then given to the inner iides of the 
bark-ring to cover the patent part : Which 
coverture will be efFedled in near half the 
time, that the hke wound would have been 
on a hafty amputation, by hook — 'handbill 
— &c. 

My next difcurfory account is, of what 
enfues, or becomes of the remaining redun- 
dancy of fep, which was not employed in 
the formation of that bark-ring^ and which 
was reftrained from perfuing it's wonted free 
courfe into it's bough, before it was debark- > 
ed. Now part of it, with great rapidity is 
conjoined to the nearmoft fap afcending up 
the body into the upper boughs not debark-- 
ed ; as may be feen by their fubfequent ex- 
traordinary vigour ; and fome fmall portion 
will yet find a paflage thro' the inner pores 

E 4 . of 



C 56 ] 

ef the daily perifhing debarked boughs ; till 
at laft the fame by the fun and drying winds, 
being rendered impervious to more in the 
parts debar kedy the death of the whole raid 
boughs, enfues. 

But were fuch irjlanfly to perifli upon 
the before cited operation j the confequence 
would be as bad to the tree with regard to 
ramous eruptions, as a fudden lopping off 
the boughs ^ which fails not to occafion them 
in the body : The phyfical caufes of which 
I have before largely exemplified. Still left 
fome redundancy of fap, and wanton fuper-- 
fluity thereof, fhould remain unexpended in 
the manner mentioned, or otherwife ^ and 
as an addition to fuch overplus, nature in 
very hot and moiit weather fliould fend up 
from her earthly ftorehoufe, fuch an un- 
ufual quantity m.ore, as to endanger a forci- 
ble prcduiTiion of lateral germinations ; I 
fail not at the fame time, that I do debark 
any boughs, to Jlit with the point of a ftrong 
knife the bark of the body of the Oakhng 
both above the debarkation ^ and far below 
k, in three or four equal divifions. And 
this incifive expedient creates a defigned 
difcharge^ and fuhftitute employment of fuch 
I overplus 



[ 57 ] 

overplus fap, in the outward expanlion of 
the body of the tree ; by enlarging the out- 
ermoft ring of foUd wood, and likewife giv- 
ing a freer evaporation of fome ill confe- 
quences that might inftantly enfue from It's 
moft volatile parts : So that all is quiet with- 
in — too great rarefadion ftaied — ftrong ebul- 
litions cooled — their common effedts pre- 
vented — And nature is doing the Marker's 
bufinefs, at the fame time it is doing it's 
own. 

I HOPE my regard to fome perfons at firll 
alluded to, will be accepted by others, as a 
fufficient apology, both here and elfewhere, 
for the protrafted manner of delivering my 
obfervations ; as likewife for the diverfify- 
ing in the form, now and then, fome expref- 
lions ; from the confcioufnefs of my own 
infufficiency to convey my ideas intelligibly 
to any at once. 

It was Indeed partly from a like, tho' 
different operation widely, which a philofo- 
pher would call tranflatitious terms, that I 
fell upon bark-lancing. The fame being 
occafioned by my reflection on the prad:ice 
^f m^ny fhyjiciqns and Jurgeons caufing ^ 

revulfion. 



[58] 

revulfion, upon an untimely eruption of 
blood J or puftulous humour in human bo- 
dies ; in order to put a flop to fuch unnatu- 
ral extravafations. Altho' I was fenfible 
this kind of revulfory expedient would not 
inftantly take effect. Yet I was confcious 
before any mifchief would enfue, it would 
prevent the acuminated corpufcles of the 
Sap (on account of the great horizontal im- 
petus of the pent air in the body of an Oak, 
ftrengthened on debarkation^ by the diminu- 
tion of the wonted channels within) from 
boring thro* the bark, as fo many fpicula^ 
in the germens original form of buds. 

Of all the powers of art over nature, 
neither Mr. Boyle^ nor any other naturalift, 
that I know of, has mentioned the follow- 
ing 5 which tho' not a perfedl parallel, I 
crave leave to recite — The inftance is, of 
the power of art to tranflate even the aliment 
of an animal to a different part of it's body, 
from where nature otherwife would have 
directed it. An example whereof is taken 
from the mechanical Jockies, who, when 
they have a horfe in keeping up for a mar- 
ket, that is either flat ribb'd, or poorly gaf- 
coign'd, or has any other part of his body 

impro- 



[ 59 ] 

improportioned, — can by girting to a great 
degree fuch creatures bellies, and by an 
uncommon friftion upon the defedive part, 
thence attain a greater accretion of flefli 
therein. Divers more inftances might be 
brought from other parts of nature to ftrength- 
en this argument. But I let the fame con- 
clufively reft here, from the ftrength it has 
acquired from what has been' mentioned : 
Craving only leave to infert two fentences 
out of Cicero^ in reference to art and ar- 
tifts.— 

" Artium alhid ejufmodi genus e/l^ ut 
tantummodo animo rem cernat^ aliud ut 
" moliatur alt quid et faciatr 

The other is — Artis maxime proprtum 
" ejl^ creare et gignere" 

But I fhall not truft to fimiles of my 
ov^^'n, or the axioms of others, to fupport 
the credit of fo effential a means to recom- 
mend and prove the fuccefs of this grand 
affiftant — bark-Jlitting, to debarktJig : Which 
will both remedy the expanfive force of the 
polar particles of the fap in the body of a 
young Oak, from getting an unnatural vent 

thro- 



[60] 

thro* the tranfverfe defiles of the bark, opw 
pofite to the horizontal veffels in the main 
wood— And aifo promote the greater en- 
creafe of latitudinal wood., or in other words, 
a larger circumference of the bodies of fuch 
trees— 

I ROPE by this time, It is needlefs for 
me to avow it to be my earneft endeavour 
to familiarife the leaft fhew of difficulty to 
nil forts of agents ; that as my pretended 
doings are not dreams, fo their difclofure 
may not be darknefs. Of which however 
what writer can be affured ? Too many 
Uiore experienced pens than mine, having 
but darkly expreft that to others, which wa& 
poffibly clear to themfelves in conception, 
and that upon no very uncommon fubje<fls. 
A man's own written words, however ill 
chofen, may likely refleS the fam.e internal 
images in his mind, when read again at fo 
great a diftance of time that the former 
were forgotten. But he cannot be fure, let 
them be never fo appofite, that the fame 
charadlers will convey altogether as homo-- 
geneous ideas to others. And the matter 
is ftill more improbable, where any num- 
ber of words are above the underftanding 



[6iJ 

t)f particular readers. Which having, not- 
withftanding my general intention otherwife, 
poffibly been lately the cafe herein ; that I 
may before I conclude this Chapter, leave 
none of the loweft, or leaft apprehenfive a- 
gents, \^4iofe willing attention I have had 
thus far, in the dark j by reafon of a few 
paft philofophical terms ; I think I fliall fuf- 
ficiently evince a compleat performance of 
giving them a fuitable conftrudlion of the 
caufes of lateral germens on the body of an 
Oak, by fhewing — That if they know the 
effedt of comprelTed air in a defedtive to- 
bacco pipe, from their flopping one end of 
the fame, and blov^ing with their mouth 
-at the other, (and the better if their own 
ialiva were mixt with it) they may attain 
a competent conception of the former limilar 
caufe. 

Even an old woman now a days, whom 
we will not fuppofe to be as knowing, as 
^n antient female Druid, might be thought 
in this particular cafe ; has a proper notion, 
in her way, of the efFefts of compreffed air 
on the like occafion, and even of it's like 
impulfe, in whatfoever body, or from what- 
foever caufe it came to be compreiTed 5 and 

as 



[ 62 J 

as flie untaught any reafon, but from cuftom 
only does prick with a needle, or pin, an 
apple intended to be roafted, or a faufage to 
be fried, to give the juice of the former, or 
the liquified fat of the latter vent, in gentle 
exudations : Were fhe taught, that folar fire 
has no unlike efFed: on the fap of an Oak, 
altho' a diflimilar effort j fhe would not be 
long in conceiving the caufe of lateral ger- 
mens, thro* their natural pinholes. 

I SHOULD, but for the reafons given, afk 
pardon of the learned for the lownefs of the 
comparifons. 




CHAR 



[ 63 ] 




CHAPTER m. 

TH E ftate and alfo intended manner 
of my proceeding being before in- 
timated, it will not be improper to 
mention an experiment, to corroborate a 
very material article advanced in the fore- 
going Chapter : That I may leave no fcru- 
ples behind unobviated ; v^hich otherwife 
may be brought in evidence of my v^eak- 
nefs — inflead of my difplaying the v^ifdom 
of nature — Wherefore I attempted to make 
proof ftatically^ v^hether thofe very Oaks laft 
mentioned, by means of having had their 
bark-Jlit on bough debarking ; did grov^ the 
more in their circumference, and latitudinal - 
girt than otherv^ife they would have done. 
To be rightly affured of which, I fixt upon 
fix young Oaks of an equal fize and, as near 
as I poffibly could, age : All which I girt 
the fame day, to a mathematical exaftnefs, 
with a linnen unftretching cord, which 
fempftrefles call Bobbin, The ends of which 
being overlaid each other, were held in that 

pofition 



t ^4 3 

pofitlon by a fervant, till I crofled the feme 
with a pen and ink 5 my felf driving in a 
Ihiall nail, at that inftant, a fufficient way 
into the bark, right under the part fo crofled, 
that I might know exadtly where to make 
the like girt again, with the fame ftring, 
when I fhould think proper to make proof, 
how much more the bark-Jlit Oaks were 
grown in their circumference, than thofe 
which were not. Note, the faid girting 
was about fix feet from the ground. 

The event of which experiment at one 
year's end, happily was this — That two of 
them that were bark-Jlit^ were grown more 
in content of the ground, than two others 
that were not : And between one which 
was fo flit, and another not, I found but 
very little difference 5 this I impute to fome 
better inner ftratas of earth, the unflit one 
had met with ; becaufe on further like ef- 
fays, the flit had ever the advantage. Still 
any like Mechanitiaii when^bout to recon- 
noitre fuch difference, mufl: avoid being led 
incurioufly into the delufion of thinking, that 
every fuch tree, is precifely at all times fo 
much grown in the round, as the whole 
content of the feveral fiffures when put to- 
gether, 



[ is ] 

gether, (caufed by the flitting of the bark) 
amounted to — efpecially if the operation was 
made in hot weather. For I have found on 
the proof before mentioned in fome further 
hke experiments, that the real circular 
growth amounted to fometimes more, fome- 
times lefs, than the whole of fuch chafms : 
And that tho' the bark-Jlitting was or was 
not made in hot weather, and fuch a differ- 
ence otherwife, might probably be occafi- 
oned, by an unequal adftridion, or fupple- 
nefs of the bark of fuch Oaks ^ it being 
reafonable to fuppofe that in the latter cafe^ 
It will not always rend open, like a cord or 
piece of cloth that is ftrained, fo readily as 
in the former — The circumferential girt 
being nine times in ten extraordinary on 
fuch an occafion, is a fufficient proof of a 
revulfion of that fap thereto, which for 
want of being fo ufefuUy diverted would 
probably have occafioned lateral germenSo 
To this I am likewife on experience able to 
add, that altho* bar k-Jlit ting, tho' never fo 
abundantly adminiftred, rarely happens to 
dellroy germens already grown, without 
other means; yet it feldom fails to make 
them weak and fickly — The flitting by me 
commonly pradifed on bough-debarking in 
F content 



[ 66 ] 

content of it's length and other proportion, 
has often been ten feet, but moftly longer, 
in three or fckir pretty equal divifions on 
the body of every Oak, even fometimes 
twenty feet. 

Yet is no fuch trees altitudinal growth, 
by means of fuch their greater horizontal, 
obftruded. As the boughs demolifhed from 
time to time yield the fap before employed 
to their fubfiftence only ; to throw out thf ir 
tops, as ufual, to a greater height annually. 

Having fpoken of fome artful means 
to promote the circumferential growth of 
the bodies of Oaks, by the annual addition 
of a new outer ring of wood ; I am come 
to offer my reafons, by what particular 
channels within, the fame is in a great mea- 
fure promoted ; tho' it may prove my un- 
happinefs to differ therein, from fome prefent 
great naturalifls ; who attribute the like to 
the upright vefTels moflly. But which I 
take to proceed from the trachceus infertions 
in the body of an Oak formed like a radius 
from the center to the outermofl parts late- 
rally J defcribed by Dr. Grew^ by the help 
of a microfcope j a draught of which is here , 

exhibited. 



1 6n 

exhibited, and I think is proved from the 
following experiments-^I debarked the very- 
bodies of two Oaks in May^ one of which 
was as big as my wrift^ the other lefs, nine 
inches in kngth each, clofe to the ground ; 
fixing thereon a bandage of wetted paper 
and ftraw over that* The Michaelmas after, 
a new bark being formed^ and the main 
wood frefh underneath, I thought it fur- 
ther very material to inftance the fuccefs of 
this experiment, in order to ftrengthen many 
following propofitions : Whereas it is very 
conclufive from hence, that nature makes 
ufe of fuch infertions for the yearly encreafe 
of wood, as well as bark in her regular pro- 
cefs. And that (he may not be diverted 
therefrom by lateral germens ; by flitting 
the bark longitudinally (whereby it's ad- 
ftriftion is leflened) a phyfical liberty is a- 
gain reftored to her cuftomary powers. Fur- 
ther, if the Oaks annual rings of new outer 
wood are form'd in good part, from the in- 
ner horizontal veflels, as hence, I have found 
the bark is wholly • it is good reafon to 
conclude, that at fqch times when the bark, 
is fo cohsering and fo clofely comprefs'd to 
the body, as not to be pliant and yielding 
to the formation of every new infant ring—- 

F 2 The 



[ 68 ] 

The fap thereupon fhlfts it*s otherwife def- 
tin'd employment, and feeks, and flies to the 
crowd of little port holes next adjacent in 
the bark, in order for ligneous produdllons 
of another kind — And even where fuch co- 
hsefion of the bark is not over great.; by 
what means foever the elaftic airy flatus in 
the fap becomes over violent, it may alfo 
be driven to the unnatural ufing of the a- 
forefaid means. But more of this in the fe- 
quel. For it follows firfl: I fhould fubjoin to 
a topic before mentioned, that in regard to 
the number of boughs at firfl: trial, to be 
debarked^ great care is to be taken not to 
exceed therein ; and it is no lefs proper to 
intermit two years at leafl:, before fuch fur- 
ther attempt is made on the fame trees. 
Tho' no doubt improvements may be made 
on my prad:ice, it may not be improper to 
intimate, that I never exceeded three boughs 
in number the firfl: operation — nor debarked 
any more on the fame trees, till the third 
fpring after — at which time alfo, I never 
made freer than to debark two more — for 
what caufe may be readily apprehended, at 
leafl: will be readily found, on any young 
operator's overdoing : After which I moftly 
refl: three years, before I debark any higher 
I boughs^ 



[ 69 ] 

boughs, or arms. But of the precife num- 
ber of boughs to be at any time debarked^ 
as their forms, conditions, and fizes are dif- 
ferent ; I think no invariable rules can be 
laid down, and defined : Time and pradice 
will be the beft inftrudtorsj the ingenious a- 
gent will foon attain that knowledge, and the 
llupid never. I hope I have faid enough to 
inftrud the former, and never fo much will 
be fufficient for the latter. 

A FURTHER prefcription Is not un- 
worthy of attention, namely — That it is not 
proper to debark all boughs as they came in 
order of growth ; but to take the ftrongeft 
firft, leaving fome fmaller, (as in part before 
intimated) that grow between, above, or be- 
low the larger, that they may for a time 
continue to relieve the tree of it's thencefor- 
ward encreafing ftore of fap ; which will 
naturally enfue upon debarking the larger 
boughs. Nor do I always take oS fuch fmall 
ones as were for that reafon left, even at the 
next debarking feafon ; but many times 
leave fome of them on longer, to arreft the 
afcending fap in order to the enlargement of 
the body of the tree: Which otherwife 
might become too flender for it's height ; and 

F 3 there- 



[ 70 ] 

thereforie I do not put them all into a perifli-* 
ing ftate, till I find proper caufe on that ac- 
count. A little obfervation herein, better 
than any written rules, v/ill inftrudt the ad-* 
venturer. The time being come, the largeft 
of thefe quondam fmall ones are to be de- 
ftroyed by debarking ; and the fmaller, by 
the method which will be defcribed in the 
next Chapter — I think fit, fiirther to inti^ 
mate, that I ufually take occafion by fom^ 
means or other, to deftroy moft of them du- 
ring the vacancy of the aforefaid three years ; 
as alfo fuch petits efforts of the like kind, 
which an intervening malevolent feafon may 
caufe anew to protrude out of the body of 
an Oak, And that if I find an Oakling has 
two rival Ihoots at it's top in manner of a 
fork ; I begin with one of them, negleft- 
ing for that feafon, one of the lower boughs 
in it's room. 

Having men ioned the time, the inftru- 
ment, and the manner by which this ope- 
ration is to be performed ; I api now about 
to relate ingenuoufly what difaftrous feafons 
I have met with in making fuch trials. For 
as I have concealed nothipg advantageous to 
t}i9 executi^ii of.theJfc experiments, fo nei- 



t 7x ] ■ 

ther would I any difafter that may befall 
them. I never in truth met with rtiore than 
two cold ones which much afFefted them. 
The latter of which happened in the year 
1742. The winter preceding the fame, 
being attended with fharp frofts, and the 
fpring following with cold winds 5 without 
any kind warmth to invite the Oaks in the 
leaft to vegetate ; the fap which by little and 
little got up at a few favourable times in 
the winter into their bodies (which on the 
leaft funfliine lies not wholly dormant) ftill 
lay without any material aftivity. An(J this 
was the cafe till near midfummer following : 
A little before which — Great rains and fun- 
Aine thereupon enfued, at which time the 
benummed bodies and their boughs were fuch, 
as not to be able to contain the then aggre- 
gate of rarefied fap, and to receive there- 
with the vaft affluence of more, which the 
moiftened and warmed earth likewife had 
enabled the roots to fend up. Whereupon 
fiich of my young Oaks, as had been de« 
barHed^ being overcharged with a volatile 
lympha, threw out thereupon a ramous 
lpray~ 



F 4 ThU 



[ 72 ] 



This cafualty however proved not the 
ieaft difcouragement to me 3 as I found up- 
on infpe^^lion, the like germinations, from 
the fame caufe, befel fome other which 
before were clear in their bodies, and had 
undergone no debarkation of this kind. To 
account for which events more fully, I find 
it needful to corroborate my own way of 
thinking, by one of the Halean thermome- 
tral experiments : In which altho' the Doc- 
tor foreftalled me in the Static proof, he 
did not in the thought 3 as I ever entertained 
an opinion conformable thereto, viz. — that 
the heat of the earth pretty deep, is very 
near the Jame^ both night and day, in the 
fummer, or fpring, either. As therefore 
this muft be granted on fo many accurate 
trials as he made 5 I need not many words 
to urge, that the fudden cold of an evening, 
or morning air, upon the fetting in of an 
eafterly, or north wind together with 
additional weight of the atmofphere in the 
night, muft neceffarily be the occafion of 
an almoft total depreffion of the fap, froni 
the head of any tree downward, which was 
not condens'd into wood. And whereas, 
as before fuggefted, the fap keep's on it's 



[ 73 ] 

ufual afcent from the roots, by reafon of the 
lefs changeable heat in the earth, at fuch 
cafual times, the fame muft in meeting the 
upper in it's defcent, either burft the tree, . 
or proceed to a ramification in fuch parts of 
it's body as it can moft readily 5 either be- 
ing but a natural efFed: of their oppofition, 
or to ufe a modifh word, Contravention, 

And thus a fudden cold, from a like con- 
traft, by flopping a free perfpiration, many 
times gives birth to cuticular eruptions in 
human bodies, like to ramifications thro' the 
bark of Oaks. But altho* it is not my bu- 
finefs to fliew all the analogous affeftions be- 
tween animate and inanimate bodies ; I think 
it not impertinent to my defign to inftance 
fuch parallels, by reafon that the diagnoftic 
part of the maladies being fhewn, the Thyfi^ 
cal remedies may be the more readily ap- 
plied, efpecially as it will thereby appear, 
that the Prefcriber \% not fighting againft na- 
ture \ but as a rational phyfician remedying 
tbofe diforders in either conftitution, which 
malevolent feafons, and ©ther accidents had 
brqught upon them, 



I HOPE 



C 74 ] 



I HOPE I may be excufed, having fo 
largely treated on fome of thefe circumftan- 
tials, as likewife continuing fo to do, as it 
was a maxim of the Honourable Mr. Boyky 
That there ought to be a recognition of 
all thofe ways which in any particular 
cafe, nature can be known to operate, 
in order to define thereupon determinate 
txnthr 

It comes next in place to fubjoin the other 
difafter, incident after my debarking ; and 
which I obferved many years ago : After the 
Gaklings in the fpring had fhot out fix inches 
at leafi? : The extremities of which fhoots, 
with the infant leaves, upon one night's £harp 
froft, turned as black as ink : Whence the 
like ifiiie as in the former cafe enlbed, viz, 
petty ramifications laterally. 

And fuch accidents as here mentioned, 
would have proved great evils indeed, could 
there have been found no fafer expedient ta 
take off the lower parts of fuch twigs, which 
were not abfolutely perifhed by fuch a froft, 
than by hook — hatchet ^ &c. For the lower 
end of the ramufculi alluded to, being in 

a living 



[ 75 3 

a living ftate, and too fmall to be debarhd, 
required a better head-piece than mine to 
hit on an expedient, inftantaneous— and cer- 
tain— i tried feveral, and my iirft was after 
this manner ; I procured a Gimlet^ whofe 
worm part was ground off, and the remain- 
ing part formed into the fliape of a Joyner*s 
goudge, and with as fharp an edge 5 my in- 
tention being to thruft the goudge part 
forcibly thro' the bark of the tree, firft oa 
the upper fide, and next under the lower fide 
of each fhoot, in order to turn out the very 
radicle of fuch fhoots therewith. And this 
expedient indeed fails not to put an end to 
their little lives : But withal I muft obferve, 
it is a flow operation, and will do execution 
only on the fmalleji twigs. Wherefore tho* 
in part it was efFedhjal, yet on account of the 
tedioufnefs of it, I laid it wholly afide, as 
Mr, Homberg the Chemift did his experiment 
fcf converting mercury into gold^ becaufe 
it Would not quit cofl:. 

On which perplexing accounts, I mult 
have left this whole affair verv imperfvCljj 
had not, after the iafl: infiifficient effort/ rny 
ignorance again been the parent of the like 
fuccefsful prefuniption, as it had beerLin the 

begin- 



C 76 ] 

beginning of this enterprife : And that even 
to a degree beyond what I expefted, and as 
far as I could wifh — Infomuch that now I 
am not the leaft difcouraged, if after the 
deftrudtion of the ramufcuH before menti- 
oned, fome fmall protrufions of like kind 
do proceed becaufe their tender exiftences 
are very eafily put an end to, by a fubfe- 
quent practice. A full account of which I 
fliall refer ve for the next Chapter ; that I 
may in the interim endeavour to prepare the 
way better to that, and fome other propofi- 
tions. 

And firft if for the fake of carping, fome 
of the fayings of the ancients are brought 
in objedtion to effays of this kind ; as that 
nature is of her felf moft wife — Again, that 
nature always does what is beft — Sentences, ; 
which owe their fignification and ftrength'to 
referved meanings ! Then why do we prune 
our vines, or graft the wilding fruit ? Cicer&' 
at leaft underftood thofe words in no oppo- 
nent fenfe hereto, as he has faid— 

Natura nihil omni ex parteperfeBumexpolinjif. 



Altho' Lthink our Bifiop of Cloyne has more 

juftly 



[77] 

juftly determined that point in his Siris ^ 
wherein he afRrms, that " natural produftions 
are not all equally perfeft." Conformable 
therefore more to the matter of the two lat- 
ter dogmatifts, I have found caufe to aver 
in the particular of bark4ancing^ (which ope- 
ration has moftly been thought ufeful, only 
on the bodies and boughs of unthrifty fruit 
trees,) that the fame has a very kindly ef- 
fect, judicioufly performed, to the promot- 
ing a greater thrift than otherwife, on the 
moft vigorous Oaks. And that fuch Ihew 
thereon, as much fign of gratulation, as a 
turgid carnation, or pickatee, on Jlitting 
their hofe, or pod. But if in fome happy 
produftions of the Oak, the bark through 
a thinnefs and fupplenefs of it's contexture, 
is of it's felf fufficiently yielding and exten- 
dible for the purpofes of nature : Still bark-- 
lancing is abfolutcly neceffary on occafion of 
mortifying by debarking any of their boughs, 
to prevent the ill efFefts alluded to. It is 
likewife as neceffary to be performed on all 
tranfplanted Oaks whatfoever, that are of 
any ftature, and have flood any time, to 
relax the cohefion of the bark to the body, 
which neceffarily enfues, from the fmaller 
aliment that their roots for fome years are 

capable. 



C 78 } 

capable, as before, to fupply either body, or 
bark with. 

Further, no part of my fabjedt af- 
fording fo much room for conjecture, or 
Ipeculation, as what I am now upon ; there- 
in being fo many via invice to the fenfes : 
The fame Hkewife affording many arguments 
for the neceffity of the operations recom- 
mended ; I am tempted to rely on the in- 
dulgence of the moft knowing readers to 
grant me the favour of their attention, to a: 
more efpecial breviary of that kind. I truft 
not, thro' vanity, to the authority of my 
continual leifure, long application, or natu- 
ral biafs to things of this nature, to lefTen 
any man's freedom of judging 3 whether 
verfed, or not, herein : Yet I cannot think fo 
llightingly of many of my notions, but fome- 
thing may be feleded out of them by the- 
mindful, that may be of future ufe : If not 
there will this good come of it, it will teach 
all others of my Size — to keep their ideas 
without Static proof to themfelves. Still I 
hope not to proceed upon fo airy a founda- 
tion, that no folid fuperftrudure will ftand 
upon it ; it being my intent to go in ftridl 
fearch, firft, of the more numerous caufes 

of 



C 79 ] 

of lateral germens than yet infifted on, (and 
therefrom unitedly to advance another pro-- 
polition I defer here fpeaking of) Iq 
order to which former, it is apparent from 
all poilulata relating to the effedls of rarefied 
air in all mixed bodies, or to fpeak in the 
language of naturaltjls^ as they are the paf- 
fions of the fame : That the rarefaftion of 
the air therein proceeds firom the Influence 
of fome portion of fire ; the fame being in- 
deed to be concluded from what has before 
been faid : But I am come now more com- 
prehenfively to intimate, that fire in the open- 
ing, dilates the body of the air, and what- 
ever is therewith joined fph eric ally ; as in 
the bubbles of boiling water, and the fame 
will continue fo extended, more laflingly in 
liquors of a vifcous conftitution, as the fep 
of Oaks muft be granted to be. Hence when 
liquids of any kind are rarefied to a great 
degree, and at the fame time are contained 
in a veflTel, whofe parts are refiftant to a 
circwnplojion (if it makes me not guilty of 
verbal coinage) of the air within 5 the 
weakefl fide thereof will break — I would 
not by the fads lafl urged, be thought to be 
difguifing the prior knowledge of others, as 
I recently 



[8o] 

recently my own * ^ it being the applicati* 
<jn thereof I take fingly to my felf. Again^ 
the obftrudtion of the fap's free extention 
globularly in the body of an Oak, caufed by 
the fmallnefs of the horizontal velTels, is an 
argument of the power, accruing virtually 
from fuch rarefadlion, given in part to the 
tender fibres of all roots, to pierce the earth. 
And fuch powers of theirs may well be fup- 
pofed to be the greater, when the fap in the 
body is not employed to the protrufion of 
lateral germens, which is a frefli reafon by 
all poffible means to procure their deftruc- 
tion. To the like caufe furely, in good 
part at leaft, may not unreafonably be a- 
fcribed the fudden ftriking of the roots of 
an Inlay. 

I WISH I were able to entertain the Oak 
proprietor with fome intermediate affedling 
Comparifon, or diverting Simile to fo long 
an argument as I think this will prove, efpe- 
cially as I think it would well bear them 
both : But left I ftiould prejudice the cafe by 

* Thus Boerhaave fays, That one efFed of Fire is 
dilatation (even) of all folid bodies, and particularly, that 
an Iron bar hatid^ inma/fs in all its diAienHons. 

my 



[81] 

my own impotence in the execution, I dare 
not make the attempt — I hope therefore 
that he will be contented with the bare Vir-- 
ginity of the Argument, without any fuch 
portion, and placidly however, and without 
languor permit me to proceed and only fay — . 
That there are fuch inward contrafts and 
conflidls, adive, or paffive, and quaqud ver-- 
Jum exertions of the fap, occafionally in the 
body of an Oak, caufed by the air*s rare- 
faction therein, as rarefadlion is from fome 
portion of fire : Were reafon filent — Is ob- 
vious to the fenfe of hearing, on flitting the 
bark of it in a hot day, about the end of 
May, or June ^ and that to a degree of ex- 
plofion, asquable to the audible hiffing, when 
vent is given to a veffel of new ale, or any 
other fermenting liquors. 

To take the force of the preceding argu- 
ments in a yet further light : Let it be con- 
fidered, how great the almoft ignited rare- 
fadlion, and thereupon horizontal ebullition 
of the groffer, as well as thinneft fluids mufl: 
be, to break fo fl:rong a prifon as the bark 
of a well grown Oak : The fame from it's 
natural contexture being lefs apt to rend and 
extend lengthwife, than the folid wood. Nor 

■ G can 



[ 82 ] 

can the fun only outwardly, be fuppofed to 
be the prime inftrument, . in the caufing fuch 
ufual filTures and chalms therein ; as the 
fame are as great on the northlide of an Oak, 
as on any other point ; yet had not nature 
provided fome like integument, to refift 
on occafion, too great a dilatation of the 
fap within the body laterally ; and withal 
had not the horizontal trachaeus infertions, 
or tubes within, been much fmaller than the 
perpendicular this lofty and proud vegeta- 
ble would otherwife, by the means alfo, of 
the declining pofition of the fun in this our 
hemifphere (whereby the aid of his greater 
attraftion would have been much affifting) 
have grown out very improportionately in la- 
titude. 

Facts, that are determinable by ftatics, 
on mathematical demonftration, have the 
happinefs in one fingle inftance to carry con- 
vidion. But fince fuch as are defineable 
only, by a logician, and thofe more efpe- 
cially, whofe truth is difcernible fimply by 
the fainter light of fpeculation, cannot have 
too various enforcings of that kind, to gain 
univerfal confent ; I fhall proceed in that 
manner to evince, that there may be many 

other 



C 83 ] 

other adjunft caufes of fuch lateral germens : 
As firft — That the uncommon exhalations 
caufed by an over-violent heat outwardly of 
the fun, may render the moifture in the 
leaves of an Oak, of as firm a compofition 
as glue, and their little pores impervious to 
more influx of fap : or — That fuch parts may 
be fo confolidated by honey-dews, by which 
a refiftance being caufed to a frefh acceffi- 
on, and recruit of more tenuious liquids, the 
faid mifchievous confequences may enfue. 

I WAS not at firft intending to write, void 
of the apprehenfion, that where an effemi- 
nate life has attached a very low idea of the 
import of refearches of this kind ; that I 
fhall not efcape being thought impertinent 
herein, and not to be wholly free from the 
charge of too nice prolixity by others, till 
they come to difcern their full tendency ^ till 
which I fhall run further in truft for pardon 
with fuch, by enlarging on the like caufes 
and effedls. My confequential procefs where- 
on, being, my fuller reflections on the north- 
ern and eafl:ern winds frequently breaking in 
on the bland Zephyrs of the fpring, till pi- 
tying heaven unfixes the varying Scene % 
whereon we fail not to find that a forcible 
G 2 reflrainc 



[ 84 ] 

reftraint is laid upon, what I may call per- 
fpiration in the tender extremities of the head 
of an Oak ; when at the fame time, it is 
falutary to the Vv^hole to have the natural ef- 
fluvia thereof uninterrupted, or in other 
words, it's atmofphere not abridged. From 
whence why may it not be concluded, that 
the fap after feveral flattering invitations up 
into the bodies and boughs of Oaks in the 
winter, by ftarts of warm intervals, becomes 
greatly infpifTated, and thereby unapt to re- 
turn to the Jiatu quo of it's prior liquidity ? 
Becaufe the moft vifcous, or ligneous parts 
of it, muft thereby be much condenfed, and 
not inchnable to be fluxible any more. And 
that furely muft be the cafe, if piercing winds 
can dry, and as parching heat contract. If 
10, what can thofe fuffering patients do? 
when fettled, fhining feafons come — Able 
even to nourilh the orange and the citron 
grove ? And inilead of oriental blafts, the 
foft vegetating breath of heaven ; perhaps 
feconded by a vernal ardour little inferior to 
a fummer's fun. What ? but difcharge the 
tenuious plethora, that happens to be fo, qua 
data port the natural paflages being /ro hdc 
vice, infufficicnt voidures. 



Having 



[ 85 ] 



Having mentioned a very fhort tempo- 
rary ardour little inferior to a fummer's fun, 
and the natural confequences on the cafe 
there inftanced 5 I have lived to record (the 
cafe rightly coniidered) one in it's effeds of 
that lafting kind, more than commonly e- 
qual to a fummer's fun. The fame happen- 
ing in the Spring 1746, the very infrequent 
incident of which, being further this — That 
there not only fell not one fhower of rain 
little, or much, during the Vv^hole month of 
May, and a fev^ days alfo, the latter end of 
April, and a day, or two in June, in the 
parts I live : But the heat and conftant fun- 
fliine v/as equal in either, during fuch term, 
to the greateft MJiival fome fmall inter- 
vals excepted ^ wherefore altho' before I had 
caufe to mention only, two different manner 
of cold feafons as caufes extraordinary of la- 
teral germens on the bodies of Oaks before 
clear therefrom, or had been cleared thereof 
by art ; yet was fuch fingular feafon produc - 
tive of the germens alluded to, more than 
either of the other recited. During which 
whole tim.e alfo, as I carefully obferved, and 
fome days after the fall of rain ; no Oak 
young, or old had made the leaft new fhoots 

G 3 at 



[ 86 ] 

at their extremities above confequently had 
no new channels to carry off the highly ra- 
refied fap in the bodies : The leaves formed 
from the buds of the former year, not yield- 
ing a fufficient difcharge for it. 

Why heat without rain upward, will 
not caufe the heads of Oaks to vegetate in 
it's moft natural manner altho' the earth 
and confequently their roots are never fo full 
of moifture (as was the cafe then, there hav- 
ing been great rains before) is not my bufi- 
nefs here to afcertain. And it would be 
but of little ufe, as it cannot be beforehand 
prevented, to offer at reafons, why on fuch 
occafions the fap has a readier power to form 
even new buds in the bark of the body, and 
thereupon to vent it's felf in lateral exertions 
farther, than at the head of the Oak, where 
there were buds ready formed to receive, 
and aid it onward : It being my proper em- 
ployment only in that particular cafe to take 
them all off again, when they are formed. 

But it concerns the proprietor to be in- 
formed, that he will find more fuch extra- 
vafations in dry, hot fprings or fummers, 
than in moift fultry ones. One reafon of 

which. 



C 87 ] 

which, among others, I take to be the fup-- 
plenefs at fuch time of the whole body of 
the bark yielding to the preffure of the ge- 
neral impulfe of the fap within : Whereby 
it is not conftrained to feek out fuch weak 
parts therein, where it may beft vent it's feif 
in manner aforefaid. 

But I proceed to fay — That fuch cold 
eafterly winds fometimes leave behind them, 
another effectual means of the ill effeds al- 
luded to : But what we cannot with our 
own, nor perhaps could we with Galileo'^ 
eyes at firft difcover : Thefe are minute Be- 
ings, latent before in the womb of nature 
(no new creation) but not difcernible to the 
naked eye, till they come to be big enough 
not only to devour the Oak's tender buds, 
but infant leaves likewife — ^till winds or their 
own weight bring them to the ground, if 
not before fetched away by Rooks and Crows^ 
who are greedy of them ; or death other- 
wife bereaves them of their worthlefs live&. 
And of all the obftruftions of this diftrelTed 
plant's kindly revegetating and recovery ; or 
that make an operator the more work about 
lateral germens 5 fuch vernal locufts (Aureli- 
as the Virtuofi call them, as being of that 

G 4 genus) 



[ 88 ] 

genus) are the worft. Nor need I be at any 
further ftudy to iliuftrate this, than by one 
fnigle parallel. 

V/hat therefore I fhall urge by way of 
allufion, is from the late ingenious art (when 
ufed on proper occaiions of Anti-vegetation^ 
viz. The defirable reftraint, in that cafe, 
that is put upon the over-vigorous growth of 
the flioots of vines and divers wall-trees by 
a difcreet pinching them off. Which has 
no unappofite refemblance, to the rough and 
ragged wounds, left on the remaining parts 
of the boughs of any trees, which have been 
browfed off, by cattle : whereby enfues fo 
great an obftrudlion to the revegetation of 
fuch plants, that the vulgar opinion of coun- 
trymen is, that their bite is venomous. 

I NEED go no further back for aftual 
proof of fuch exiftencies and their effedis 
than the fpring 1743, when there were 
great numbers of well grown Oaks thought 
to be pafi: ull recovery thereby, and ever 
having leaves again. And this diftemper, 
for fo I think I may call it, was epidemical 
that feafon in Suffolk and Effex^ fave where 
the Oaks were extreamly v^ell defended from 
a fuch 



[ 89 ] 

fuch malignant blafts and their genuine ofF- 
fpring; and where the foil was very rich^ 
Yet I do not apprehend the bare obftrudion 
of the progreffive part of the head of the 
tree alone, on fuch occafions, is to be con- 
iidered, or the lateral germinations occafioned 
for want of the accuftomed difcharge of the 
already afcended fap, at it's natural rills. 
But that, as I take it, there is a real fympa- 
thetick correfpondence between the head of 
fuch plant and the roots, in like manner as 
between the roots and the head as to their 
future cuftomary efforts. In which latter 
cafe a Green-houfe gardiner will tell, by the 
head of a plant fet in a tub, almoft the in- 
ftant that the roots thereof are got to the 
bottom and fides of fuch domicill. The 
like indeed is feen in many vegetables, in 
the decline of their heads in the open earth, 
from a fufferance of any kind in their roots. 
And were there not vice njerfd altho' not 
a like, yet fome peculiar difaffedion to the 
former vigorous faculties of the roots of a 
plant, after the pinching oiF it's upper ex- 
tremities 3 a more fruit-bearing, and confe- 
quently more weak and moderate flow of 
Sap for the future, would not be the efFed: 
thereof as it always is. The reafon is plain 

—Why 



[ 90 ] 

—Why the injury to fuch trees is likewifc 
but moderate, namely becaufe there are al- 
ways collateral capillary veffels elfewhere 
open, (fuch operations being ufually per- 
formed at the latter end of May, when the 
trees are in full leaf^) But fuch difcharges 
the Oak has not the leaft refort to, whofe 
whole verdant head has been gnawed off, 
and confequently great difcompofure to the 
future efforts of their roots muft naturally 
enfue. 

The accurate Mr. Ray^ In his wifdom of 
God in the Creation, inftances the cafe of a 
great number of Mulberry trees, that en- 
tirely died by means of their leaves being 
gathered clean off, to feed filk worms. 
Whereupon may it not be fuppofed, that the 
fap in the roots of fuch grew firft torpid, 
on the deprivation of their correfponding 
vents — afterward entirely ftagnated and cor- 
rupted ? Yet had not fuch mulberry trees 
totally died, is it not reafonable to prefume, 
that the like fufferance in their head would 
have occafioned fome invifible languid effort 
in their roots ? But taking my leave of Eafl- 
ern winds — Hot fudden vernal feafons — Long 
dry Summers — Robuftan Aurelias^ and all 
2 the 



[ 9x ] 

the before mentioned, fuppofed caufes of la- 
teral germens, arifing moftly from a dif- 
tempered Plethora of Sap ^ I defift here from 
further fpeculations thereupon, but all which 
paft, I hope have been very allowably urged, 
and in the main have the favour not to be 
thought immaterially 5 being however not 
unaware with what difcreet coldnefs, be~ 
caufe of the modern deteftion of many fal- 
lacious opinions formerly current in phyjical 
cafes, that all knowing gentlemen give into 
conjedlures of this kind., 

Yet to fupport fome of the foregoing, I 
know not how any fuch would be able to 
gainfay the man, who fhould make an ex- 
curlion fo far into the regions of fancy and 
the wilds of reafon, as to maintain, that— 
nature without the immediate influence of 
folar heat by a proper commixture of hete- 
rogeneous particles, drawn from the earth by 
the roots of an Oak, as falts — ^fulphur-— 
oil — acids and other bodies for which Che^ 
mijls never found a name ; by a reciprocal 
opponency to each other, may at times raife 
a heat in the body of an Oak, and thereby 
caufe an ebullition in it's fluids equal to the 
greateft warmth of the fun. The heat of 

Bath 



[ 90 

Bath water being now, by the moft judici- 
ous, attributed to a like caufe. And if that 
point is gained, fuch a kind of free-thinker 
may* poffibly require confent, that whatever 
will raife a heat in a plant will caufe it to 
vegetate : Whence further he may poffibly 
urge, that — from whatever caufe the afcent 
of fuch fluids, or when afcended, to what- 
ever occafional caufe again a defluxion down* 
ward is owing, a foundation thereby may 
be laid for the origin of lateral germens. 

For my own part, I ftand in no need of 
borrowing any fupport from the like meta- 
phyfical thoughts, it being I hope to be rea- 
fonably concluded from many of the caufes 
before mentioned alone 5 that the fap in the 
body of an Oak, from the common elaftici- 
ty of the air, which is not long permanent 
therein, attains accidentally a diffuiive moti- 
on every way, viz. of the propulfion of the 
roots into the hard earth — again not only of 
it's natural afcent upward, but alfo of an 
occafional dcprcffure, as in the cafe of the 
Je famine — and a like from a Spherical mo- 
tion of an injurious lateral protrufion of ger- 
mens, v/hen either a defluxion downward, 
or an evolution upward is prevented by any 

obflrudi- 



E 93 ] 

obftrudions — The frequency of which and 
wherefore, having I hope been fatisfadtorily 
illuftrated. 

I AM come, and not before high time, 

to intimate, it being the propofition meant 

at the beginning of thefe fpeculations, that 

if another great end, hefides the efforts fo 

often inculcated, has not been forefeen, of 

the difquifitions paft ; I fhall think much of 

my labour loft, if upon my firft mentioning 

it, the affedlions aforefaid, are not allowed 

to be the prime caufes of the ufually thence 

too early^iiTuing forth of the kwer boughs^ 

or arms of an Oak ; and keeping them in 

the like perpetual pofition. But I fufpend 

the full determination thereof till I come to 

the head of the Oak's natural manner of 

growing in old E72gland, As therewith is 

joined the full confirmation of the propoliti-. 

on laft fboken oi. 
J. 

Now this being the elementary Chapter 
to that, and other things, I fhall here beg 
leave, on account of fome perfons I keep in 
view, and whom I would not have by rea- 
fon of other matters intervening, iofe" fight 
of the caufe and necefiity of the pradlice re- 
commended ; 



C 94 ] 

commended ; more fully, if poffible, to re- 
monftrate — That by reafon of the feveral 
kinds of cold before inftanced, the fap being 
fomething condenfed ; the fame by the laws 
of gravitation muft defcend from the head 
of a plant, and not meeting with impulfe 
ftrong enough from the ftill afcending, to 
caufe it to re-afcend into the deferted veflels 
above, and as fluids are always in motion 
and never idle, the fame again, feeks an eafy 
paffage, firft thro' the fmuous network of 
the confiftent parts adjacent, then thro* the 
membranous rind, between the rough outer 
bark and the body j next more ealily yet, 
thro' the outer coat of the former by means 
of it's greater porolity, and inftantly ap- 
pears in extra bodily Lilliputian ilioots. 
And this the rather, the body being lower, 
and ccnfequently in a warmer pofition of air 
than the head. 

And hereupon, it may not be amifs fur- 
ther to obferve, that were it not the nature 
of an Oak, as happily it is not, on all fuch 
occafions, inftead of bodily germens, it would 
throw up traduces from it's roots. 



Lastly, 



C 95 3 



Lastly, as on account of my felf it 
may be needful ; I think proper to intimate 
to the lovers of a greater mixture of the 
duIcCy with the utile on fubjefts of this kind 5 
the greater hardfhip lying upon a georgic 
Profaic Writer on mechanical operations, 
than on a georgic Poet on the like. The 
former is often obliged to fall into the dul- 
nefs of repetitions, where he thinks needful, 
before the reader has time to take his mean- 
ing ; and at all times is not to omit the 
leaft circumftance, as he is not confined to 
the meafure of verfe : And muft thereby run 
the hazard of falling into futility, without 
the enlivening harmony of numbers, to pal- 
liate the flat particularities, and drinefs of 
his matter — But the Poety where precepts 
begin to prove dry, or dull, will fkip over 
them, after having firfl culled the flowers 
of things. Thus Virgil^ on fuch tender oc- 
cafions, flops fliort and cries, 

-/^/ prafa hiberunt. 

And again — 
Et jam fempus equum fumantia fohere colla^ 



In like manner Rapiji artfully excufes him- 

felf 



[ 96 ] 

felf from the tedloufnefs of delivering all little 
nice particulars, by his faying NOW, mean- 
ing before he wrote — 

Art has fo far improved on nature's ftore, 
That fcarce it felf can add one beauty more* 

Still no fooner will fuch a languid Read- 
er commence or Aftor, or Spectator on 
this fylvan Theatre, but the melodious Sym- 
phonies of Birds — the foft modulations of 
tremulous Leaves — the inartful amours of 
cooing Turtles — and the young Woodward's 
intermiffion of his whiftle to ling of Fuhia's 
radiant Eyes, will make him forget my dif- 
parity v/ith the Poet, on account of my want 
of more harmonious terms and over plenty 
of dry matter. 




CHAP, 



t 9/^ J 




CHAPTER IV. 

I Have yet to offer in cafe of need, and 
in order to mitigate an irkfome pere-= 
grinatlon thro* this fabjecl, that it is 
ufual for travellers in paths but httle beaten 
to think the ways tirefome and Idng. But 
fuch have the habpinefs to be able here., 
to take up in what part of the road they 
pleafe 5 as alfo that every ftage v/lU grow 
eafier and eafier. For my own part, it is 
now not more from promife, than with 
pleafure, I am Come to £hew an eafier man-^ 
ner of deftroying the whole fpecies of la- 
teral germens, of fuitable fizes, iffiiing often 
from, or on the bodies of Oaks, different 
from my firft effay. And that favourite 
Specific is a Contufion of the fame with a 
hamtner, whereby I have had extraordinary 
fuccefs. What, befide the infufficiency of 
the former before mentioned, gave the firft 
rife to this experiment, was the difficulty I 
found and the time it took in removing; 

H ladders^ 



[ 98 ] 

ladders, how light foever they were tnade^ 
from one tree to another ; as the young Oaks 
in courfe grew the higher in body, as well 
as head, on every deftruftion of their lower 
boughs : Whereas I found much more eafe 
and expedition by the help of one fingle 
ladder, (as the other operation of the little 
goudges required two at leaft, if not three, 
according to the feveral heights of the ger~ 
mens,) to forward a young agent up the 
Oak, from the top of which he could be- 
gin climbing to any part thereof, with a fliort 
handled hammer, or faw in his girdle, and 
a knife in his pocket ; either for contiifing of 
germens — Or debarking of boughs — Or Ja^w- 
ing the latter off, when dead — Or Jlitting 
the bark of the main body where needful- 
Such a perfon being very well able to hold 
himfelf on, with his two legs and one arm 
for either purpofe : The fizes of the upper 
parts of fuch Oaks bodies, not being of too 
great diameter for his grafp : And enough of 
luch climbers may be found in every county, 
well verfed in deft roy ing Rooks and Crews 
nefts ; altho' a Httle praftice will make the 
moft inexpert at firft in climbing, artifts there- 
in, provided they are light nimble fellows. 



It 



[ 99 ] 

1^ Is to be noted that a blackfrnitlft 
fmalleft hand-hammer^ (as it is called) is pro- 
pereft for the faid performance i and that 
the effedls of tmtujion^ are very near alike 
to thofe of debarking ; where the very v^ood 
of the germens is not entirely mafl:ied^ or 
broken into fmall (livers 5 which in the 
larger of that kind, as much as may be 
(hould be avoided* But as more inftant 
death enfues thereon, tho* performed after 
the moft judicious manner^ than does on 
the debarking only of boughs ; there is there- 
fore the more inftant occalion for bark'^ 
flitting the body of the Oak in form a- 
forefaid 5 to give due vent to the violent a- 
gitation thence, of the fap of the Oak^ not 
unlike to the effervefcence of the blood on 
the difmembering a human body. 



HAYlKa 



t 1^0 ] 



Having mentioned one only 
manner of hark-Jlitting the bo^ 
dies of Oaks, i^iz. in long con* 
tinned perpendicular flits from 
near the top to near the bottom, 
in three or four pretty equal dif- 
tances 3 I think fit to mention 
in this place, a different form^ 
and not the leafi: unfightly, 
which I have pra6tifed with e- 
qual fuccefs, and which I think 
comes nearer nature in the 
figures of the fiffures fhe her felf 
makes in the bark ^ as here ad- 
joining defcribed. The faid flit» 
being fhort and many, and per- 
formed quite round each tree, 
in fafhion which has no unapt 
refemblance to the figure exhi- 
bited : Altho' there is no need 
of a mathematical exaftnefs. 



Having alfo given the agent a gene- 
ral intimation of the manner — ufes — and 
caufes of his labour— and a fuflicient know* 
ledge of the phyfical effects of either con- 



[ ,ox ] 

iujing'^debarktng — or bark-Jlitting the feve- 
ral parts of Oaks on proper occafions— It 
is high time that he be inftrudled which 
fort he will find the eafieft and moft govern- 
able Objefts of his pradlice ; and again 
which will require his greateft ingenuity 
and attendance to reform. To whom in 
the latter may not unjuftly be applied, on 
the event, the tranflation of an Arabian, 
proverb, uiz, 

Exercens hene^ tngeniim^ Jin male 
inepttudinem Juam indicahit. 

First then as neither kind have been 
fufficiently enlarged upon before ^ it fhould 
be obferved, that the happieft fort and moft 
complying Oaks with his defigns, are thofe 
whofe bark may be faid to be comparative-^ 
ly fmooth and white, or filver coloured and 
withal pretty thin \ of which pliant confti- 
tution, not unfrequently thofe are, called 
Secojids^ in good woodlands ; as likewifq 
commonly Thirds^ of thofe falls near the 
intervals fpoken of ; and in all foils of a 
very homogeneous conftitution, are to be 
found even many large trees. To thofe 
moft excellent qualities, I might add that, 

H 3 of 



[ 102 ] 

of but a moderate cloathing of mofs, toge- 
ther with the invifihle charadleriftic, and 
undiftinguifliable at fight, but from the ill 
confequences of the contrary ; that the bark 
of fuch be of a difunion (if I may fo call 
it) with the adjoining wood, I mean not too 
clofely adhaerent, or contiguous to the body 
of the Oak, as before in part hinted. 

It is very certain that in all healthful 
Oaks, the conftrudtion of their neareft parts, 
by which I fhould rather fay the tubltous 
parts between either, is fuch, as to be ex- 
tendible, fupple, and yielding to the crowd 
and prefTure of the annual rings of wood, 
which nature forms on the outer circum- 
ference of fuch trees : With referv^e ftill 
of a fufficient vacuity in the intcrftice be^ 
Iween bark and wood, for fuch fap as is 
deftined to afcend into the head. Again-— ^ 
in union with which afpiring fap, I mufl 
further add reception likewife in fuch va^ 
cuities for the fap extraordinary propelled 
thereinto occafionally, from the inward ho- 
rizontal infertiona, fee Dodlor Crew's Plate, 
Laftly — when afcended ; an adaequate em^ 
ployment thereof, without obflxudlion, ia 
the head of the trees und leaves ^ in order 

that 



C '03 1 

that from a fortuitous flood of the like fuc- 
culence, a forcible protrufion is not made 
thro' the capillary cortical vefTels, to the 
unhappy formation of the aforefaid DwarfiJIj 
germens laterally. 

All which qualifications I take to be 
neceflary to a regular proceeding of nature 
in this part of her province. And I look 
in the general upon all puny lateral produc- 
tions on the bodies of Oaks, even the too 
early iffuing forth of the main arms to be 
preternatural, or invitd naturd ; in other 
words, that nature ordinarily proceeds not 
to the generation of germens in thofe parts, 
nor fo frequently of too early and untime- 
ly arms in the Oak's minority, (in good 
woodfoils at leaft) but as {he is one way or 
other forced thereto, by extraneous means. 
Another indication of the healthful ftate of 
young Oaks, is, that their upper boughs are 
very much ered:, and even their lowermoft 
inclining thereto ; that is to fay, not much 
pendant, or hanging downward, but tend- 
ing more to an ereft, than a horizontal po-^ 
fition J efpecially when winter has freed 
them of the weight of their leaves 5 as like* 

H 4 wife 



C ] 

Wife that in their own form they are ftrait 
and not over crooked, or curling. 

Yet may a young Oak have all the 
good qualities before mentioned, and ftill 
be incapable of ever becoming a large tree. 
As for example — where an Oakling is un- 
happily grown from an old ftubb, or father's 
head, as woodmen call it, how vigorous 
foever the firft efforts are ; which indeed 
for a time are obferved to be more fo, than 
thofe which grow from fingle ftubbs : Yet 
no fooner is the body and the head of the 
former grown to that content, that the old 
roots can carry them to y but both body 
and head ftand ftill ; by reafon that the roots 
themfelves are frequently fo aged, as to 
have no further progreffive motion : And 
this is the ufual fate of the offspring of fu- 
perannuated ftubbs, whofe growths have been 
cut down ten, or a dozen times, perhaps 
more, as fyha ccedua ; yet while their off- 
fpring is young are able to fupport it lu* 
ftily, 

Nov/ I am entered on this head, it is 
not lefs proper, the unknowing agent ftipuld 
informed what fort of Oaks are lefs pro- 

mifmg 



¥ 



C ] 

mlfing of being much affifted by him. They 
are firft, fuch, (to fufpend here a relation of 
all the caufes) whofe bark is ordinarily rug- 
ged, or deep furrowed — and black, or tend- 
ing thereto — whofe laft year's ftioots, altho' 
a following wet feafon, are extreamly fhort 
— and a further diagnoftick of their infani- 
ty, is, that their bark adheres almoft as 
clofely to the outer ring of v/ood, and flicks 
thereon comparatively as faft, as a bullock's 
hide to the flefh — -which is the reafon that 
fome of that fort will not run, as the phrafe 
is, in barking time, at leafh not kindly. The 
ftore of fap collefted in the whole winter, 
and foremoft part of the fpring, fcarcely 
being fufficient to lubricate the parts alluded 
to, either for the convenient purpofes of na- 
ture, or of man. Too many inftances of 
this unhealthful fort are to be found among 
Oaks growing in weak foils, or even in 
good, v/hen fprung from the old fathers 
heads before fpoken of, yet may have ar- 
rived to the content from five, to ten feet, 
or more, and confequently whofe firft up- 
per tier of boughs are fomething above the 
fizes of what I have recommended to be 
debarked ; even before they arrive at their 
fatal ftanda 

Which 



[ ^o6 ] 



Which unfortunate trees moreover, in- 
ftead of their having lateral germens here 
and there, fhall fometime$ be found to be 
extreamly full of them, and likewife per- 
chance have on their fides, boughs big e- 
nough to be debarked; But in the main, 
are a kind of pigmy fhoots that never en* 
creafe much in bulk, of whatfoever con- 
tinuance they are ; for if fome occafionally 
die of thcmfelves, v^hicli is frequently the 
cafe, others of like fort arife in their ftead ; 
But during the time of all the furvivor§ 
growth, they leflen the aliment defigned by 
nature for the head of their parent, and 
keep every part of the plant from any ma^ 
terial encreafe, at leaft much reduce it. And 
this is the ftate of all Oaks in a higher, or 
lower degree, as they have more, or lefs 
germens on their bodies. Yet altho* divers 
of thefe forts are little likely to be made 
very fine trees by any art ; ftill the condi- 
tion of many of them is to be much bet-? 
tered by thofe who grudge not a little trou* 
ble, as will be fliewn in the fequel. 

But in order to prevent the very be- 
ginnings of fome of thefe calamities, as fp 

proper 



[ 107 ] 

proper an occafion here ofFers, and if It 
would be thought agreeable to extend the 
limits of this diflertation to any collateral ar- 
ticle, that may for time to come, reduce 
the number of many of the invalids menti- 
oned, and greatly encreafe the ftock of the 
healthful objedts of the agent's induftry 
and the proprietor's gain ; I fliould advife 
all owners of woods, ftudious of fuch an 
emolument, whether the Jylva cadua is 
felled by themfelves, or fold to others by 
the acre, that they truft not even their own 
woodfellers, much lefs theirs that buy the 
fame for fale again, to fet out at their dif- 
cretion after their indeliberate and blunder- 
ing manner, the proper ftock of ftandils^ or 
'WeaverSy either in quantity, or quality. But 
if the matter is thought below the perfonal 
attendance of fuch owners, or at an incom-. 
modious diftance 5 that-- — they make choice 
of fome judicious woodward, and the better 
to engage his care, to afcertain to him more 
than common wages, fome time before an 
ax, or hatchet is that way employed, to 
traverfe the wood intended to be felled, 
having with him a boy carrying a pot, or 
tin kettle of tar, foft greafe, and foot ftirred 
up together 3 in order with a brufh to mark 

around 



[ 108 ] 

around about a yard high, every fuch weaver 
as appears propereft for the fucceeding wood- 
fellers to leave. And it is incredible how 
many acres two fuch may mark a fufficiency 
for in one day : Whereby if an entry of the 
number is made, it will be entirely out of 
the power of the woodfellers to blunder, or 
commit any waft of that kind unknown ; I 
call it very properly waft, becaufe a fine 
iceaver cut down injudicioufly, and an or- 
dinary one left in it's room, is a double waft : 
Befides it is well known what blunderbufles 
the common run of fuch labourers are, as 
likewife that they are more attentive to 
make wages to themfelves, than careful to 
commit no waft for their mafter's fake. And 
if he who purchafes the underwood in grofs, 
or by the acre, is not a man of uncommon 
probity, in cafe he gives no fuch orders 
himfelf, his woodfellers will think they merit 
of him, by fetting out a parcel of poor — ^ 
fmall — weak 'weavers^ that the faggot wood, 
and cord wood, alias round wood, may rife 
the better. Whereby many perfons of dif- 
tind:ion have been great fulferers, and thofe 
moft of all who employ Stewcrdsy or Bai- 
liffsy as many fuch are greafed in hand by 
the purchafer. 



t 109 ] 



This faid I proceed to admonifh thd 
careful agent, whom I think on this occali- 
on I may not improperly call the Drejjer 
of the Oak, on it's carelefs and negledful 
outer habit 5 that he may very fafely bark-^ 
Jlit any fuch in the height of fummer, as 
well as the fpring, whofe bark he is able 
to Jlit with a ftrong knife, at the fame time 
he is contujing the germens. 

But becaufe the ftrongeft knife in the 
ftrongeft hands, will not be able to per-- 
form the like operation on fome unthrifty 
Oaks of greater growth^ much lefs on fuch 
as are ftill more in content of timber 3 he 
will find himfelf obliged to make ufe of a 
Cooper's Ax^ not Hatchet^ for that purpofe. 
The ufe of which fhould not be too late in 
the fpring : For if fuch performance hap- 
pens in very hot weather, while the fap is 
in great agitation and the fun violent hot, 
the feveral flits thereby made will rend 
open, fo as to expofe the naked wood to 
wind and fun, which is to be learnt from 
what has before been faid. But if the fame 
is performed in mild weather in the fpring, 
it is very agreeable to obferve how the cut- 
ting 



tihg partially that ftubborn ligature^ will re- 
invigorate the whole tree, and call off the 
before deftinated germinal fap to the en- 
creafe of bodily wood : The germens at 
fuch time exifting having been firft tontufed. 
Nor can I help thinkingj but the remoteft 
roots of fuch trees, enjoy a fenfible relief 
on the fupprellion being thereby taken oifj 
from their fending up the afpiring fluids they 
had imbibed from the earth to their proper^ 
but before obftrufted ends. 

Note, in this fort of bark-Jlittin^, a 
mathematical exaftnefs in ftrait lines from 
top to bottom of an Oak, is neither necef^ 
fary, nor more ufeful, and if it refembles 
that form of knife bark-Jlitting reprefented 
at the beginning of this chapter, it will not 
be amifs. As alfo that fuch Ax be fafhion* 
ed more like a meat Cleaver j but (horter* 
And if the agent has not a fteady hand, the 
fame fhould have two gages, viz. one at 
either end of the blade, if I may fo call it, 
which will prevent thro' unfteadinefs, his 
ftriking any end thereof into the very wood^ 
by an unlevel chop ; which as much as may 
be fliould be avoided. Likewife that a wet 

and 



4 



C "I 3 

and dripping feafon forwards very much 
this operation. 

This brings to my recolleftion, that 
there are a fort of Oaks, which if not al- 
ready grown too old, and confequently their 
bark too ftubborn for the operation of the 
AXy muft in al! reafon, highly recompence 
the proprietor's trouble for the fame 5 whether 
they have any ramufculi on their fides, or 
no : Such being thofe that are pigtailed^ 
as the timber buyers phrafe is j meaning, 
too much improportion'd in their bodies a* 
bove, to what the girt is below; whether 
the fame has been occalioned by a greater 
contraftion of the bark above, from drying 
winds, or fun or any other caufe : But which 
expedient, if the former arguments, in fa«- 
vour of bark*llitting, be admitted, will con* 
formably bring them, in time, to a more e- 
qual proportion in their upper parts to the 
lower ; if the latter are at the fame time o- 
mitted. 

There are likewife Oaks which cafually 
grow flat, meaning, not entirely circular 
in their bodies j which I apprehend to hap- 
pen from the greater ftifFnefs of cohaefion of 
I the 



[■■2 3 

tlie bark to the wood on the too flat fides | 
which may attain a relaxation and the Hke 
confequences therefrom by the fame means. 
Neither of which events however have come 
within my own experience. 

But I am able to urge in fuppdrt of 
fuch opinion the event of an experiment^ 
I made of late years^ on fome young trees 
not bigger than my wrift, which was the 
/lifting their bark about four foot high from 
the ground fix times in the whole round, 
and renewing the fame in the interftices, al- 
ternate years, whereupon the bodies in fuch 
parts fwell'd out extraordinary to any other 
of the fame. But either cafe is to be attend- 
ed to before it is gone too far. 

Again, in the latter two cafes, the ple- 
nary efFefts are not likely to be attained, as 
nature therein muft be waited on, from one 
fingle performance 5 and therefote the fame 
are not vifibly to be expedled till the force 
of two, or three operations are over, in- 
termitting at leaft a year between each. But 
thefe things I mention rather as matters of 
Difquifitions to the Curious. 



[ ^'3 ] 

In reference to the pig-tailed Oaks^ thd 
niifchief of their fo growing, is very con-^ 
fiderable to the proprietor. For the buyer 
will not accept them, without taking two 
girts, and often three, which is ordinarily 
a lofs to the owner : For fhould the buyer 
accept them at one girt, it might be a lofs 
to him, efpecially if they ate to be converted 
at whole lengths, as he mufi: then be o- 
bliged to waft the lower to the fize of the 
upper parts : Yet w^here fuch Oaks are too 
far gone already, meaning where their bai'k 
is too ftubborn for the operation, there is no 
more to be faid thereon ^ but that the own- 
ers would, if at all, take thofe in time which 
are not. But giving up all that are hope- 
iefs of remedv therein— as like wife all other 
Oaks whereon by reafon of their age the 
ufe of the Ax on their bark is imprad:ica- 
ble^or where otherwife the before meu- 
tion'd feeming over much to do, is too for- 
midable— I hope yet to make my advice 
welcome to all fuch owners (as I have had 
therein fo pracflical fuccefs) for their debark- 
ing all boughs which have fhot out of their 
fides between the ground and the firft large 
arm of their heads, and contufing of germeuSj 

I . if 



C "4 ] 

if there be any ; which of either fort hap^ 
pen more frequently in pafture timber than 
in woods, (the faid boughs not being bigger 
than the fizes I have advifed to be debarked,) 
And it is furpriiing what an eclair cijfemejit 
fuch a drejjing as the deftroying the capillary 
germens by contufion^ and the larger by 
debarking^ will give to all well grown Oaks 5 
over, and above the additional value fuch 
operations bring. The timber proprietor 
otherwife fells, while the bodies, are thereby 
in part obumbrated, what himfelf cannot 
clearly fee beforehand the value of, and 
the buyer will hardly take the pains to fliew 
him. 

As it concerns me to be as little as may 
be begging the queftion only, when I am 
fpeakiug of the advantages to the Oak at- 
tainable by the energy of fuch contiifions 5 
1 know not better where to introduce the 
correfpondent in fiances, than here, that nei- 
ther Fern— Tanfy— Nettles — nor any other 
vegetables, if trodden on, or their heads by 
anv other means much bruifed, when in 
full fap, will throw out any more like tra- 
duces from their roots, had they any other 
fupplemental way, as contufed germens have 

to 



to dilcharge the future refource of fap * 
Of which fort of plants it is again further 
to ' be remarked^ that if their heads are cut 
oif neatly by any inflrument, they much 
readier ilioot again from their roots, in like 
manner as germens when fo treated by hook^ 
handbill^ &c. Further — it is well known 
to the moft ignorant hufbandman how much 
more readily the grafs grows when cut by 
{harp fithes, than when the like herbage 
has been trodden on, and battered with 
catties teeth and feet. 

And again as to the latter manner of 
bark-Jlitting, viz. that by the Ax ; I muil: 
acknowledsie that there is much more trou- 
ble in the execution of that fort, than fuch 
as require only the operation of the knife, 
fince there muft be ordinarily two light lad- 
ders of different lengths to command the 
diftindl heights of the bodies of the OakSo 
But I have fufficiently experienced that gen- 
tlemen therefrom will find their account in 
all growing Oaks, of whatfoever lize, where 
needful, and where it can be performed. 
And I perfuade my felf to make the credit 
of the ufefulnefs of that operation fo reafon- 
able before I have done, that it needs not to 

I a ^ be 



[ ] 

be taken on the authority of my own af- 
furance only ; as alfo that I have already de- 
monftrated the good efFedts of knife bark- 
Jlitting on young Oaks, that there needs no 
other arguments thereon than what have 
been given. I would have no man on fu- 
perficial motives, make light of the benefits 
arifing from bark-JliUtng in general, no more 
than from contufion : Becaufe that great and 
ftrange efFeds often proceed from fimple 
principles. Further — to inftance one mate- 
rial efFeft of the former, not before menti- 
oned ; I may appeal to an eftabliflied ex- 
pedient to make a young crooked tree, of 
any fort, grow flrait ; namely by Jlitting the 
bark on the concave fide, which it performs, 
as I conceive, by only the hollow being 
thereby filled up with additional wood. 

But in reference to either of the per* 
formances, I fliould not omit to intimate, 
that fuch practices may not lie under difpa- 
ragement for vain attempts ; that there are 
fome Oaks fo full beforehand in their 
bodies of fuch minutiae^ or continued clufter 
of fuperfoetations, that moft will be tired 
with drejjing them. Yet I have many times 
had the fortunCj for experiment fake, to get 

ths 



the better of fuch habitual indifpofitlons, 
and reftore their parent to a healthful ftate, 
by contujing all fuch germens the firft year, 
and at the fame time Jlitting the bark of 
the body alfo, in four equal parts from top 
to bottom, and renewing the fame operati- 
on the fecond year, in the interftice between 
the former flits j as alfo by repeating the 
contujion of the newly fprung out germens ; 
fliould any part of the body ramufculate the 
fecond year, and bring forth fuch illegiti-r 
mate offsprings. 

For where the vital parts are not very 
deficient — Or the underftratas of earth are 
not much refiftant to a further progrefs of 
a tree's roots — there need be no defpondence 
of a cure, even where fuch germens are a-^ 
bundant — Altho' I had rather acknowledge 
my infufiiciency than prove it, by pretend- 
ing to give perfed; diagnofticks where they 
are, or where they are not remediable : 
What I can give any man hopes of fucceecj- 
ing in, from my own experience, is, where 
there is no great defedl in nature, in a 
ftunted or unthrifty Oak, fuppoflng it has 
much more in content than what is called 
timber—Where the foil is not fo unfavour=T 

I 3 able 



[i,8j 

able to reftrain a free progreffian 
ther of it's roots therein — Where eith ' 
jftop has been put to his former th_rift, 
fome unufjal drought, which is many tiri.es 
the cafe in foils of the weaker fort — Or ' ' ' 
been brought into as bad a ftate of invc 
tary inactivity, by being overtopped a 
— Or curbed underground in his roots 
fome more mafterly tree, while it ftooa— 
Or where the vernal Aurelia before nen- 
tioned, had feemingly put it paft all rt'^Mit^- 
tion. In all which hopelefs cafes, ft ^1 it 
is admirable, vrhat a reftorative to it's 
tine healthy if ever it had any, the jud c.ol 
ufe of the Ax. on the bark of it's bodr— 
and the Jlitting the fame with a ftrong knife 
on it's main arms will prove — Together with 
the contujjon of the lateral germens, when 
properly fo univerfally drejfed — 

It muft be enquired of thofe wr 
beft able to drive the horfes of the fun 
am neither able by any Jtatics, or fti , ,a 
of reafon to fhew, on fo Imall motion is 
given to an Oak by fuch contufion ^ How 
great a fpring may be given to the p:i.xia- 
nent and fixed air therein — What elaJicity 
thereupon, the fluids may attain— And 



[ "9 ] 

)Ivency of the too ftrid: ligature of the 
: ,,iv may enlue — Still were I to aflert fome 
oryi'QQ of all, I know not who would be 
abl to confute me, 

UT thefe fecrets of nature lying out of 
tny each, I leave to thofe who are better 
^^h' to fupport their opinions for, or againft 

r 5 to perfue the relations of fome far- 
prad:ical obfervations concerning the 

feJ germens ; as, that I ufually cut them 
^ft, after they are entirely dead, to give 
to the little ri72glets fubfequently gene- 
ic... on the body to clofe up the wounds 
if they are any thing large. It is alfo ma- 
terir to be noted, that if all buds, altho' 
bigger than a wheat kernel, are not at 

.me time contiifed^ that they will ger^ 
Ljinate the year following, the more vigo- 
rous y, for their elder brothers deaths: But 
cc : iquently are not to be looked upon as 
new eruptions, in prejudice to this experi^ 
mei' , if omitted. 

Upon the whole of the foregoing mat-t 
tr : think my felf fully authorifed to main-^ 
That, from very long and unvariable 
©biervations on thefe united experiments ; 

I 4 The 



[ 120 ] 

The bodies of fuch Oaks are therefrom en- 
larged—Their further httle bodily ramify- 
ings moftly prevented — Their beauty much 
encreafed — And their value very greatly en- 
hanced— 

As to the complainants againft me on 
any fuppos'd, at firft, difficulty in the per- 
formances, a little ufe will make the fame 
eafy — And as to fuch indolent and unenter- 
prifing owners, who care not to purchafe 
or profit, or pleafure with any ftudy about 
them — As likewife fuch who have but a 
flender taft this way — They need be little 
perplexed at the feeming intricacy and the 
multiplicity of the foregoing diredions 5 
when abftracled from my pretended folution 
of fome phaBnomena, and reafons given for 
my various praftices. All which fuch may 
lay afide and neither hurt themfelves, nor 
me, fo they pay but implicit obedience to 
the rules prefcribed. Whereby their me- 
mory being di&urthened they will have little 
pccafion to complain of intricacy and varie- 
ty. On whofe account the rudiment? ha- 
ving been as fparingly as poffible, to be in- 
telligible to them, laid down ; 1 fhajl for 
future 'm refpeft to the; education of thi§ 

great 



[ 121 ] 

great traveller on the Main^ be ftudious to 
confine my felf to themes lefs chargeable 
with perplexity, or likely to create any lan- 
guor in them, from my deduction of feveral 
points from one general head : Begging par- 
don firft of fuch as are prseadvifed of any 
intimations paft, or to come, efpecially if 
they are fo obvious as not to bear once the 
repeating. I am not infenlible there are 
divers of the learned, among whom it would 
be ambition high enough in me to commu- 
nicate in the whole to them, an Anecdote^ 
or two of nature : For I pretend to give 
fuch no general information, but what the 
perfpicuity of their own minds would have 
led them a diredter way to, if they gave lefs 
application to other matters. 

In reference to whom I think however, it 
may bear commemorating, that all debarked 
boughs leave out fooner the fpring after, 
than any other 5 as thence arifes the admo- 
nition of a material fylvatick ceconomy : The 
fad: of their fo leaving, if I remember right. 
Dr. Hales has mentioned in his vegetable 
Statics, and has likewife offered reafons for 
it, but without the like application — I take 
it for granted that no gentleman that is eafy 

in 



[ 122 ] 

in his fortunes, would without Angular rea* 
fons, take down for his own ufe, or falc, 
thriving and trees of finifhed growths pro- 
mifcuoufly. And the aforefaid obfervation 
will dired him to the knowledge what Oaks 
have done growing, or are leaft growing : 
As all apparent vigorous trees, are ever found 
the backwardefl: in leaving out in the fpring ; 
in like manner as the undebarked boughs to 
their affociates : Provided they are of one 
and the fame fpecies — the fame bignefs— 
like foil — and on the like expofure — even 
let the genus arboreal be what it will, either 
fruit, or forefter, the argument will hold 
good, whoever fhall give themfelves the 
trouble of a comparative meafurement of the 
bodies of fuch Oaks with others : But they 
fhould take this caution with them, viz, 
to obferve which had maft, or moft maft 
that year for in plenteous maft years, the 
timber grows but Uttle, and in like manner 
fruit trees when much loaded. 

My next propofition is, the fafeft means 
I know of, to prevent damage accruing 
necelTarily to the body of an Oak at fuch 
part, as where any larger boughs than I have 
propofed, even large arms of timber trees 

are 



[ ] 

are to be taken off; on account of feme 
vifta, or otherwife. Wherefore in order to 
^ falutary execution thereof, and to obviate 
the belief in fome gentlemen, of an inevita-. 
ble decay at the long run, in the part of the 
body of the Oak next adjoining : I think 
it needful to obferve, that no inference is to 
be made from fuch, as have fuffered from 
arms dying cafually, and have been fuffered 
in a lingering manner to rot off : For in 
that cafe it feldom fails of proving very inju- 
rious to the body of the tree, by means of 
their breaking off, in a rough and ragged 
manner, and frequently thereby drawing out 
fmall fpUnters from the body it's felf, and 
leaving a few tough fpUnters flicking out of 
the fame. Which (tho' I think I might 
fpare faying it) are of courfe part of the 
hearty remnant of the broken arm, or fuch 
parts of the body as the broken arm could 
not carry off with it : Which protuberances; 
being left behind at the time of the frafture^ 
not being foon corruptible, by their being 
moftly of the moft enduring fubftance of 
the body, do long remain thereon a fort of 
aquaduBs^ by their pofture of inclination 
to lead the rains in, to corrupt firft, the fap- 
I jpy part of the tree adjoining, and then by 
i " " degrees. 



[ 124 ] 

degrees, the hearty ; as the alternate changes 
of wet and dry, will gradually waft and 
confumc any fubftance lefs hard than a 
ftone. And by fuch time as thefe aqu(zdu6is^ 
or prominences ate themfelves perifhed and 
rotted off Nature then, and not before, 
and perhaps never with fufficient power, 
fets about a final clofure of the wound. And 
the lofs cannot be computed till the tree 
is converted — ^Nor is the damage then to he 
computed barely from how much of the 
tree is thereby periflied — But the fale of 
the whole is loft for the moft valuable pur^ 
pofes. 

As the truth of thefe obfervations is ob- 
vious to all but blind men, but not animad- 
verted on by any fylvatick writer, that I 
know of ; at leaft no means propofed of 
remedying the mifchiefs arifing therefrom ; 
I think very little perfuafion requifite, as the 
remedy withal is fo eafy, to induce the pro- 
prietors of old timbers to prevent the ruin 
of many a fine Oak, in fuffering fuch 
breaches to lie open and expofed. As there 
are no greater managers than many men of 
fortune, in all other parts of Geoponics, 



Nor 



t ] 

Nor is the manner of taking off the 
large arms of timber trees, other than that 
of taking off fmaller boughs. According- 
ly in the firfl: place, I would advile the de- 
barking fuch arm, or arms at the proper 
feafon of the year, that is, when the bark 
runs well ; if large, for eighteen inches in 
length, or near upon, from the main body i 
in which condition the fame fhould remain 
for one year, and if two, the better j that 
a pretty large ring of bark might in that time 
be formed by nature contiguous to the body 
of the tree. At the end I will call it of 
two years, if there is no great haft, the 
fame fhould be fawn off, avoiding a hajiy 
fall, to prevent any fplinters being drawn out 
of the body thereby : After which a chiliy 
fhould follow the faw, not only to fmooth 
the patent wood, but to hollow the edges 
inward next the barkring ^ which will the 
eafier thereby dilate it's felf and cover the 
wound. But it being not proper to leave 
the fame expofed to the weather, tho' in 
a much better condition to fhift alone againfl 
it, than the rough and ragged wounds be- 
fore fpoken of ; it will be very needful to 
cover the patent part with an emplajirum 

made 



[126 ] 

made of equal quantities of hard tallow^ 
bees wax and rofin melted and laid on warm 
with a brufh in a dry day > or whatever fub- 
ftitute the owner fhall approve of. In like 
manner all boughs wrefted off by high winds^ 
or fuch as it is neceffary to take off when 
dying, or dead fhould be treated. 

The emplajlrum I on ordinary occafions 
generally ufe my felf, on taking off the 
largeft fize of debarked boughs, (for the 
fmaller require none) is made with the like 
materials, but withal tempered with oil^ 
or pork lard, to the confiftence and hard- 
nefs only of butter ; which needs no melt* 
ing, but may be fpread over the patency 
Vvith the thumb. And this praftice alone I 
find keeps out the drying winds, as well as 
rain, whidi are equally as injurious as a 
drying fun : And would alike caufe little 
jifures in the parts expofed, and dry up the 
natural moillure therein, which when dried 
up, nothing can reftore again. And this 
kind of balfam is laid on with all the difpatch 
imaginable* 

Next, to anfwer, if not to fatisfy the 
ncedlefs fcruples of any, that young Oaks of 

the 

4 



[ 127 ] 

the lizes I have mentioned at the beginniilg 
of this treatife, by having their boughs fo 
deftroyed, fufFer no danmage thereupon ; as 
likewife that the latter Oaks fpoken of re- 
ceive no material fufferance on the occafio-* 
nal taking off a large arm in the manner 
prefcribed, and the application of proper vul-* 
neraries, obliges me to give a definitive ac-* 
count, v^hat becomes of the knots left in 
the bodies of Oaks, after the demolition of 
either boughs, or arms— The ingenious Dr* 
Goddard before any other author 1 have met 
with, had the penetration to call fuch k?iofs 
by the fymbolical name of roots \ And roots 
\ I thinJ< is every way a proper denomination 
of them ^ the fame not being continuous 
' but contiguous parts only to the body of a 
tree ; as appears by their frequent falling out 
of fawn boards when expofed to wind and 
fun. Whence altho' the body jointly with 
the boughs of any plant, are but unitedly 
<;onj[idered as one fingle tree : Still the main 
body thereof gives fubfiftence to many more 
virtual trees ; as every bough growing there- 
from, is in ftridnefs to be confidered as a 
1 1 little tree ; more efpecially as the fame does 
j all the fund:ions of a tree growing in the 
J, earth. Particularly by fending out divers 
i - fhoots 



[ 128 ] 

flioots from fuch roofs^ when their hfead is cut 
oft by hook^ handbill^ &c. — ^Further as a root 
in the earth joftles and removes by it's fu- 
perior ftrength of extenfion, any adjoining 
ftrata's of earth, to make way for it's habi- 
tation and fubfiftence ; So alfo do the other 
roofs in their terra in the body of the tree, 
crowd — crofs — and contravene the inward 
perpendicular fap tubes and horizontal in- 
terlaces, and all other ceffible parts of bo- 
dily wood, for their habitation and fubfift- 
ence— 

Having given the true charafteriftic, or 
proper name of fuch knots — declared the 
means of their prefervation when their na- 
tural offspring is deftroyed— fliewn their 
limilar powers with roots growing in the 
earth — And their parts diitind: from the 
body of any Oak, great, or fmall — I am 
coming now to ufe very ftrong felicitations 
to gain credit, that fuch roofs themfelves in 
their new ftate (I muft call it) alluded to, 
do not thereon naturally perifh, if protedted 
from the injuries of the outward elements 
by means of the balfam fpoken of ; like to 
what befalls all roots^ or knots fo expofed, 
whofe quondam boughs have been deftroyed 

by 



[ 129 ] 

by chance. For tho* I did not admit them 
to be continuous parts of the body of the 
tree wherein they grow, but only con-^ 
tiguous -y yet are they virtually fo, in refe- 
rence to the former quality, as to receive 
after the demolition of their defund: pro- 
duce, the afcended fap in the main body 
into them ; which it is plain they had the 
faculty of thence doing and from no other 
fountain, for the fubfiftence of their own 
progeny while living : And from what time 
foever there is no further call of fap from 
the body for it ; they tranfmit all the in- 
flux of aliment of that kind, therefrom, to 
the upper living boughs of the tree 5 having 
a propenfity thereto, from the natural fu6ti~ 
on, or attraction of the fuperior parts of the 
tree ^ as alfo from the compuliive force of 
the afcending fap below : Saving fuch a 
portion thereof, as is called off to enlarge 
the circumferential growth of the principal 
body, by the eafy accefs tliat is given there- 
to by the bark being Hit near to adjoin^ 
ing. 

That this agere et fati, this receiving 
and difcharging again the fap received, is a 
^culty ftili belonging to luch roots^ n04- 
K withftandlng 



[ 130 ] 

withftanding the formation of their parts is 
compofed of pores tranfverfe, is evident 
from the praftice and efFeds of grafting ; 
wherein the combined parts of ftock and 
cyon, muft be faid to have as irregular an 
union, if not a more unnatural compofition 
and heterogeneous corpufcles, than fuch 
roots v^ith the body of the tree. If the ftrefs 
lay upon the capacity of the fluids not hav- 
ing fuch a motion in their little intorted ca- 
vities therein ; an analogy inight be brought 
from the conftant circulation of the blood in 
the fmall winding Veins of all animals ; 
wherein it is allowed by Malpigbius and 
others duly to circulate, altho' not fo 
fwiftly. 

Upon the whole, having further fliewa 
that thefe new named roots are not imper- 
vious to fluids^ that is, neceflarily die not 
——That they continue capable both of re- 
ceiving and remitting the fame again to the 
parts mentioned after any ufe thereof in 
their former ceafe — And confequently are 
thereby well enabled to perform (if I may 
fo call them) all manner of animal fundli-. 
ons— It is indubitable reafon to conclude, 
that the great damages difcoverable many 

4 times 



C -31 ] 

times in the working up of old timbers, are 
emirely owing to the neglect of the ori- 
ginal owners, from their not timely ap- 
plying fuch kind of remedies againft the 
fame, as have been prefcribed. Infomuch 
as all the injury that with any fliadow of 
reafon can be alledged to proceed from the 
roots of the higheft fizes of boughs, I have 
recommended to be deftroyed 3 is no more, 
than that the clear riving quality of fich 
trees, for the ufe of the cooper, clapboard 
maker, lath and pale render, may in time 
to come be fomething injured, even to the 
content of the diameter of fuch roots : The 
which cannot be any thing confiderable, as 
it is well knov/n, that the cleareft bodied 
Oaks that have otherwife fo naturally grown, 
had once fome boughs near, if not full as 
big, that cafually periilied in their youthful 
growing ftate, in their lides either by their 
having been obumbrated and ftifled for want 
of air, by the higher domineering boughs 
of the fame— Or perchance by lateral ad- 
joining boughs of other trees — Or by being 
within the reach of cattle, have by their 
browings undergone a lingering death- — And 
yet after fuch fatal confequences, no ap- 
pai'ent injuries of that kind have been com- 
K 2 plained 



[ ] 

plained of therefrom, by the future render, 
or cleaver. 

Nor is it at all difficult to account, why 
any fuch fuppofed damage fhould be nearly 
imperceptible, from fuch fmall and yet 
living roots : For no fooner are the outer 
parts of them covered by the barkring fpoken 
of, and a new parenchyma compleatly form- 
ed, whereby an abfolute clofure is made 
to the once open parts : But nature proceeds 
thereunder in her accuilomed manner, of 
forming new eredl redlilineal fap tubes in 
the annual circumferential rings of new wood 
over fuch roots ; in like manner, on occafi- 
on, cleavable as the cleareft parts of fuch 
trees, and fo clofely united to the parts al- 
luded to, as they become infeparable. And 
this with the utmoft confidence I may af- 
fert • fmce net being willing on either ac- 
counts, to truft folely to the folid and fub- 
ftantial reafons that firft led me to this prac- 
tice ; where demonflration might be had 
to confirm fo material an hypothefis j I made 
no fcruple to cut open, as foon as they were 
ready for the proof,, with a chifTel, feveral 
young Oaks, which were of leaft account 
IQ me^ in fuch parts where the once aper-r 

tures 



[ 133 ] 

tures fpoken of, were by the new bark en- 
tirely clofed up : And found thereupon^ 
fueh inward parts in the falutary ftate de- 
fired. 



I HOPE the reader who intends to be a 
practitioner this way, will not think I have 
mifpent either his time, or my own, by 
being fo long in endeavouring to clear up 
the foregoing points : As thereon the hap- 
py fruits of all our expedlations and all our 
labours depend. But expectations on my 
own fide, are now no more ; other than 
what are founded on my prefumption of 
having obtained hereby, every reafonable' 
man's afiint to the preceding arguments : 
Whence I am the more emboldened, on 
account of the benefits attainable with fo 
much eafe and certainty by the like difci- 
pline on Oaks ; to urge the refledlion, how 
welcome a fcrivener, or broker would be to 
a monied nobleman, or wealthy commoner, 
that fliould put either in a way to make, 
tho* but one per cent, more of their caOi fe- 
xurely, provided it fhould bring in intereft 
upon intereft. 



Timber 



[ ^34 ] 



' Timber then being readily to be con- 
verted into money, may not improperly be 
looked upon as current Specie — And by this 
kind of brokerage will pay intereft upon in- 
tereft — As likewife advance fuch capital ad 
valorem — viz. for aJl the charge that by this 
practice be brought upon it. 

■'-It is now fome years fince, on thefe to 
me indubitable reafons, accompanied with 
ample demonftration of the conformable 
faccefs of manifold experiments of this kind 5 
that I had then, fome intention of tendering 
my fervice to his Majefty now on the throne, 
for the T'ypical execution of the like prac- 
tice, in fome of his forefls : And new foreft 
in Hampjhire^ more particularly 5 wherein 
by this time, there cannot now be lefs than 
a hundred thovifand young Oaks, which 
ftand in need of fuch culture ^ if the 
ordained in the late King William'^ time, for 
enclofing a vaft quantity of acres therein, 
and inftantly fowing the fame with acorns, 
was well executed ; and afterward all cattle 
kept out:, 



t ^35 ] 



jBuir fuch employment noW) is wide of 
my dejires^ and as much beyond my prefent 
ability as my ambition : Yet had it been a** 
therwife, I know not what Patron to re*> 
commend me to his Majejiy^ I fhould have 
found at court ; As it is their own height 
and grandeur every one aims at there, and 
among all the great number of Placemen^ no 
Intendajit de Police of that kind, or any 
like it : While France has hers, and even a 
Marqiiifs du ^lefjie : But England has nor 
Garter' d Knight nor Marqiiifs of it. As 
unmindful that, as by God*s appointment, 
one of that family, had once prolonged the 
life of a Britifi Sovereign. But fo fares it 
with the memory of Charleses providential 
Oak, unfigur'd by any lafting Emblem, and 
fuch its Fate, only lamented in thefe iliort 
liv'd Lines, 




O K A Pe 



[ '36 ] 




CHAPTER V. 

I Should be guilty of an omiffion to the 
inadvertent, did I not intimate in favour 
of tall timbers ; that more will ftand 
on an acre, and do lefs injury to grafs, 
grain or underwood, according as the places 
on which they grow happen to be ; than 
large headed and low houghing trees do : 
And that the fap employing it's felf more on 
the body of the lofty, they will be con- 
verted the lefs to firewood 3 that is to fay, 
they will be the lefs in head ; which bears 
no proportion in '^jaltie to the content in 
body. 

But what the real difference and ine« 
quality between them is, I believe, known 
to very few : Wherefore as I think it will 
prove no difagreeable digreffion, and as I 
am haply provided to give a juft eftimate 
therein ^ I fliall run the hazard of the ac- 
ceptablenefs of it. 

I ONCJfi 



C m ] 



i ONCE took down an elm, which to 
all outward appearance, while ftanding, was 
found inwardly as well as outwardly : But 
when fall'n, or fell'd, it proved what wood- 
wards call doted, and to be fit only for the 
fire y altho' without the leaft cavities, or 
hoUownefs : The fame on an exadl meafure- 
ment, amounting to forty feet only excla- 
five of the bark, I had the curiofity to 
make the experiment, w^hat an exad: load 
of any timber (computing forty feet to the 
load) was intrinfically worth for the fire only : 
I caufed thereupon the fame to be fawn in- 
to Stackwood lengths, viz, one yard and 
one inch, and inftantly riven into billets, 
before any waft could be made by purloin- 
ing : And the whole of it with the very 
bark, (over which as I faid it was not mea- 
fured) amounted to a fingle ftack only, of 
eight feet in length and five in height. 
Whereby it appears — That a ftack of fire- 
wood, in fuch parts where it fells fi^r ten 
Ihillings only 5 when delivered to the buyer 
after the charge of Fellings — Riving — and 
Carriage to any moderate diftance is de- 
duced— amounts barely to two pence per 
foot, and not to that, where the fize of 

ftackwood 



[ 138 ] 

ftackwood is cuftomarily fourteen feet in 
length, and three feet and two inches in 
height. 

This 1 think one ftrong inducement to 
the proprietor to ufe his art to employ the 
fap of an Oak, to the greater encreafe of 
bodily lengths of timber, whereby the heads 
of fuch will be in their content the lefs, 
and confequently the tree of more value. 

Nor are clear bodily lengths alone, by 
the means propofed • but all, that lies in 
our power, by art, to advance the value of 
the Oak, when grown to perfedion : As 
there remains yet another point of education 
of it when young, coefficient to that end 5 
and that is, by caufing it to grow bending 
or ct'ooked^ for the ufe of the Shipwright~ 
or on occalion the Architedt— 

M.v.^arringtony In a treatife of his pub^ 
lifhed many years fince, fpeaks of an habi- 
tual pradlice about Oldenburg in Germany of 
that kind ; and that Oaks fo difciplined and 
fit to be converted to their proper ufes, 
\vere tranfported thence to the neareft rivers 
and floated down to Holland : But has not 

as- 



r 



t »39 1 

■j as I remember defcribed the manner of the 
original dilcipline. The like has formerly 
been, but moft frequently unfuccefsfully at- 
tempted in Engkfid ; from a wrong manner 
of bending the heads of young Oaks to 

I' fomething that is liable^ in order to confine 
them in that pofture. The confequences of 

I which have been, that after high winds 

I luch cords by chafeing thereon, have eat 
thro' the bark into the very wood : And 
where that has not happened ; as nature in 
that kind of vegetation is prone to ere<5tnefs 5 
new perpendicular mailer (hoots have pro- 
ceeded out of the upper lides of the bend^ 
ing partSj and that fo much the rather, as 
the afcending fap in fuch bendiyig parts was 
fomewhat reftrained in it's progrefs by the 
conftriction of the ligature : Which (hoots 
when cut off according to old cuftom by 
hook^ handbill^ &c. have fent out near ad« 
joining three or four, perhaps a dozen more 
in the room of each ; Which has brought 
that obfolete practice fo much the more into 

I difiife. 

Another like expedient of fome of 
-our progenitors has been, to tie a cord with 
a weight at the end of it, to fome part of 

their 

! 



[ MO ] 

their tops, which by fwinging about with 
every motion of wind has proved njofe de- 
trimental than the former. For in the for- 
mer cafe, their ill fuccefs was owing for 
want of a noofe of proper leather about the 
head of the Oak, as I have found upon 
triaL 

But might I be thought qualified to re- 
commend a better time and fafer method of 
that kind j I would .advife thofe who have it 
in their power, and withal fuch long hv'd 
views for the good of pofterity, to attempt 
the bending fuch only as are not bigger, or 
not much, than a man's thumb ; and that 
fo, as the bending part fhould be on the 
lower end of the plant, and fo for ever to 
continue. Yet can tPiis performance be only 
fecurely executed, where no traffick of cat- 
tle, or idle people come. But this is to be 
faid in favour of a tree bent at the lower 
end, and not only that fuch operation is 
the readier to be performed, but that it is 
not, in that pofition, fo likely to be riven by 
intenfe froft after a great fall of wet ^ which 
is an incident many times to trees crooked 
upwards and thereto expofed in their bend, 
fo much the more. 

That 



[ ^41 ] 



That the experiment will fucceed In 
young trees of any kind, is evident from 
Georgic the 1. of Virgil^ where he fays, 

Continuo in Jilvis magna vi jiexa domatur 
In buriniy et curvi formam accipit ulmus 
aratri. 

I Ihould likewife have fpared mentioning 
the fuccefs of fuch an experiment, were I 
not prepared with an anfv/er, if afked, what 
encouragement I could urge for the trouble 
that muft be taken in fuch an enterprife : 
And that is now found to be — If a tree Is 
bowed at one end only, (tho' if at both the 
better) it is fufficient to entitle the timber 
merchant, at the Navy board (and the ori- 
ginal proprietor has a right to make the like 
account to him) to a hundred foot Meetings^ 
as the phrafe is, for every bond fide^ eigh- 
j ty ; being confequently a fifth more in value 
than ftrait timber. There was indeed a 
time, when, the allowance on that account 
from the government was greater : But fince 
the invention of crooking fhip timber by 
fire 5 natural bent timber has been a falling 
I commodity. The improvements in the Ship 

yards 



C H2 ] 

yards is now likewife fuch, as to be well 
able to make good work with ftrait, where 
only knee timber was formerly ufed : Yet 
do not fuch builders pretend, that what is 
artificially crookt by fire, is equal in ftrength 
to what is fo grown— I may call naturally, 
this way. 

But no body will be fo hardy to fay 
that our Ship- timber grows upon us, but it 
muft be owned every fort of that kind grows 
ftill fcarcer, more efpecially the moft defira- 
ble knee timber : And whereas all poffible 
means in this age, are fought after for the 
improvement of landed eftates 5 Why fhould 
not a pradice of this nature be revived a- 
mong fuch as have the opportunity ? efpeci- 
ally as no doubt great amendments may be 
made to my theory 3 I might fay great en- 
largements to my praftice thereon. 

I HAVE not in this article nor in fome 
other before been intendedly writing to per^ 
fons who ftand in need of annual returns of 
their time, and lands y but fuch as wanting 
neither ability, nor difpofition of their own 
to many of the foregoing mathemata 5 yet 
have not happily faU'n upon the right know- 
ledge 



[ 143 ] 

ledge to exercife either — Or fome that have 
been diflieartened by the mifcarriages of 
others in the particulars mentioned — Or 
others that have been overruled by the diffi- 
dence of others from entering into projects, 
(as they may have been invidioufly called) 
of this kind. 

I AM coming next more largely to treat 
of a branch of culture of Oaks that are paft 
the latter difcipline : But are the very pro* 
per objeds of that mentioned at the begin- 
ning, viz, young groves raifed from the a- 
corn, or otherways — -Or in common woods 
-—Or great wafts — not exceeding the fizes 
mentioned therein. Whereby I propofe to 
make it evident, that many proprietors of 
fuch vegetable jewels, in order that they 
might avoid the errors of Meffieurs Law/on, 
Evelyn y and Cook ; are fall'n into another. 
For in order to advance fuch ftriplings in al- 
titude they let them grow fo tbick and in 
fuch clu/ferSy that their heads have nothing 
but the zenith of heaven to enjoy : Whence 
for want of elbow room, they chafe and gall 
each other 3 unlefs here and there fome over- 
mafterly plants, partly from a fuperior ex- 
cellence from an acorn, and alfo in a good 

degree 



[ 144 ] 

degree from fome kindlier underftrata's of 
earth, ufurp thereby a haftier horizontal ex- 
tenfion of their heads over their fellows — 
In which ftate the whole are fuffered moftly 
too long to grow, the too indulgent and 
otherwife happy owner, delighting his eyes 
with their encreafing procerity, and clearnefs 
of their bodies from ramifications, their fide 
boughs in the general having been fulFoca- 
ted in a good meafure, for the want of fun, 
rain, and air — Till at length the Jlarving 
condition of many, which loudly befpeak 
their oppreflion, moves the otherwife help- 
lefs proprietor, to put fuch quite out of 
their pain ; but perhaps not much more than 
by a decimation, by which the remainder 
for a fiiort fpace have a little more breathing 
room — At which beginning few owners thin 
them fafficiently, but fuffer too many to 
continue yet ftanding : Which flattering in- 
ducement ufually proceeds from a view, 
that the remaining Supernumeraries may 
afterward turn to a better account than for 
the fire — As likewife that the near neigh- 
bourhood of the furvivors may in a little 
time again, ftifle and fuffocate each other's 
fide boughs 5 in order to attain the other- 
wife juftly defirable beauty of a yet higher 

altitude 



[ H5 ] 

altitude of their bodies 3 fuch owners how- 
ever overlooking their unasquable bignefs 
many times to their height — In which light- 
ing ftate of thefe combatants^ it is found 
neceffary again, after fome time, by the too 
vifible appearances of mutual damages to 
each other 5 to proceed to another extirpa-* 
tion, by which time however their grace-^ 
ful and exemplary afpiring, (much pleafing 
but delufive View) is fuch, as to go to their 
heart to take many more down : But finding 
a general indulgence to be but cruelty, they 
are forced upon it-^In the revolution per-^ 
haps of one feven years more, fuch pro- 
prietors become fufficiently convinced that 
Oaks like not fellowfhip like reeds ; But 
the time being come, that they ^re to make 
a little better return of what require a fur- 
ther extirpation, than for the fire (for it muft 
be called but a little) fince fir timber of their 
I fize is fo cheap, and fo much better ; as no 
forefter is worth lefs for mechanical ufes^ 
than Oak 5 ajh^ and elm^ from their firft be- 
ginnings, being all heart, as the other is 
moftly fap, with a mixture often of Jioleni 
"joleiis^ they fet about making another draught 
out 5 and poffibly fuch as are unexperienced, 
take down all the crooked ones to choofe— ^ 
\ji HowevQr 



[ h6 ] 

However that be, by this time, the ftanding 
plants, with the before, and polTibiy fome 
yet remaining to be extirpated, have ex- 
haufted much of the fpirit of the ground, 
which the plants defigned at laft, to blefs 
and make happy, coming ages, Vv'^ere entitled 
to, and fliould much earlier have had, the 
foie propriety of. Whereby they have like- 
wife invifibly undergone (But what the pro- 
prietors eyes do not fee, their hearts do not 
grieve) great fufferance in their roots, from 
being reftrained, by the oppofition of their 
rivals below, from a more mafterly exerting 
themfelves in the earth ; if not put to an 
entire ftop ; and thereby obliged to turn in- 
to a mat of fmall fibres — For where the bo- 
dies ftand fo thick above, it muft be con- 
ceived, there muft be contention in the roots 
l?elow : And where-ever there is fuch op- 
pofition, they will meet with a ftop to their 
progreffive motion : A vital ftop, and of all 
kinds, if rightly confidered^ the worft ! For, 
what the ftom.ach is to an animal, the roots 
are to a plant 3 nor do their organical parts 
underground only fofFer ; but their bodies 
tcoj by being fo thick above : For the fame 
are in the rnean while thereby prevented of 
the nourilhi^g fucculence^ they would other- 



[ ^47 ] 

wife have imbibed from all gentle fummcr 
rains and dews 3 Vv^hich their outward pores 
would have been capable of receiving had 
they ftood thin. Much lefs can their roots 
have any benefit of the greateft fummer 
rains; as what on fuch fingular occafions, 
j the upper parts of the trees do not' drink 
up, the long coarfe grafs thereunder, v/ill 
1 ——And what a great account, is, further to 
be made of ; their bodies in the mean while 
' are debarred of a greater exteniion, from 
the rarefadion of the air within them, and 
the fermentation of their fap proceeding from 
folar heat ; and confequently have every 
way elTentially fufifered in the grcipjhtg pe- 
riod of their Being ; and that, both above 
and under ground ; whofe periods of exiit- 
ence by a univerfal confent of naturalifts, 
have been eftimated to amount to near 
three pretty near equal ftages : One grow- 
ing, one ftanding ftill, or next to flil!, and 
another thoroughly decaying : Whereto I 
fhall only urge the opinion of one great Fir- 
tuofo ; and that is ^intmye ^ who in his 
treatife of agriculture thus lays, " Every 
plant has a determinate, certain and in- 
" fallible ftint, or term for it's beginning 
and duration"~-Let this argument bQ 
L % ta,ken 



_ [ U8 ] 

taken again, In the light of animate Beings : 
And who has not obferved in the latter, that 
after long indiipolitions, deobjiruent to their 
growing crifis > fuch hardly ever upon an al- 
terative ftate, make away again tantamount 
to what they had been retarded in their early 
growth : No more will an Oak ftretqh it 
away, and in the end be every way well 
proportioned, when fuch his maladies are 
removed, and no other lofs accrue to the 
owner, than what the ejedted tenants at will, 
(by which I m^ean the extirpated plants) had 
been admitted to retard his growth in his 
minority : And that nature has a fimilar 
manner of procefs in all her w^orks, is well 
known to the judicious— To bring the pre- 
fent cafe nearer a parallel ; admitting a paf-^ 
ture was overftockt with either horfe colts^ 
or horned weanels ; would either after a 
long confinement therein, and being kept 
to a fhort allowance of proper food, ever 
make equally as fine creatures in beauty, 
bulk, or ftature 5 altho' afterward never fo 
plenteoufly kept, and fed ? Is it not an ef- 
tablifht maxim to let either have a belly full 
when ypung and growing ? fatal alike to 
future com^eiinefs, height, and grandeur are 
all remoras to th^ as natural efforts of the 

Oak^ 



[ 149 ] 

Oak, at fuch period of it's Being — Nay 
were fuch plants on whom the inheritance 
of the foil, is at length to be entailed for 
life, miraculoafly to ftand ftill (as the fun 
did for JoJJma ) during the exiftence of their 
ejedled brethren^ and that their vital courfe 
was not to be fhorten'd thereby : That 
would not ferve turn j for in the mearr 
time, the congenial vegetative fpirit of^^die 
earth, with irreparable profufion would-be 
exhaufted, and the fame cannot be too much 
laid to heart* What other is the occafioii 
that timber in old woods is not ordinarily^' 
fo large as thofe in paftures ? but that in the 
latter there are not fo many fubterranean 
robbers — To come yet, if poffible, nearer- 
the cafe : If there is no account to be made 
of the congenial vegetative fpirit of the earth 
being immoderately exhaufted thereby : Then 
all our moft judicious gardiners are reprove- 
able for taking out a good quantity of earth 
in gardens or orchards, where an old tree 
has died, or even a young one that has been 
of any continuance there 5 to recruit as they 
properly call it, the fame v/ith virgin, or 
untry'd Earth ; before they put a new ono 
therein, efpecially of the fame fpecies — • 
And if the bodies of trees are not the more 
L 3 cheri£hed 



[mo] 

cheriilied by an uninterrupted enjoyment of 
fun and air — of rain and fertile dews — even 
a free combination of every element— How 
come the bodies of fuch about London that 
are clofe box'd upj to proted: them from 
idle paflengers, not to grow in any propor- 
tion of bignefs ? in the fame time, to thofe 
that are not — Another notorious advantage- 
ous influence of the fun in particular, on 
the manner of expediting the growth of the 
Oak, is fuch that it is juftly matter of fur* 
prife, the notoriety thereof fliould not have 
had before this time, proper influence on 
the minds of fuch proprietors : As it is dif- 
coverable in every carpenter's yard, that in 
the infide of the body of an Oak, if any 
thing large, when crofs cut near the Butt- 
end^ the circles which denote every year's 
growth, are found to be rather longer from 
the pith on the eaji and weft fides ^ than on 
the north • but much longer ftill on the 
Joiith fide ; and this only as having had mcfl: 
benefit of the fun : Infomuch as the lame 
pith which, if not quite, was very near, the 
center of the Oakling when not bigger than 
a man's thumb, becomes not the true center 
of it when grov/n old, by two or three inches, 
fometimes much more^ as I have often prov'd. 



[ ^5^ 3 



The ufe again I make of this obfervati- 
on, is this : Ii Oaklings are much hoas'd, 
as in the cafe I am now upon, and their 
bodies greatly (haded by each other ; as 
the inmcft of fuch muft be 3 every fide of 
their bodies is then a kind of north expofi- 
tion, and muft inevitably lofe a great (hare 
of the partial benefit of a more dilated 
foutherly extenfxon of their bodies, for want 
of an open fjn. And if the Dendranato-- 
mijls are confalted^ their report will be, 
how much greater the fap veifels are on the 
before mentioned fide- 
Ax d whence came the notions oi Jm* 
pathf and antipathy to be exploded , in vege- 
tables, as why fomie love, and fome again 
hate each other ? But from the difcovery that 
the latter proceeded only from fuch as af- 
fected one and the fame nutritious aliment % 
and from the former's attachment to a dif- 
fimilar. 

Again, both in this refpeft, and in re- 
gard to the great injuries all kinds of vege-' 
tables receive from each other, by too great 
a propinquity of place ^ efpecially if they 
L 4 ara 



are of the fame kind ^ the like apprehenli-* 
on, and the hke remedies are applied and 
brought down to the meaneft capacities, in 
frequent inftances both in hujbandry and 
gardening. But more unheeded error ! in 
places defign'd for compleat timber. Each 
princely Oak hke other fovereigns not liking 
to have it*s own capital near others domini- 
ons. 

Nor can any party of virtuous pleafure 
be the leaft pretence : For neither fo aduft is 
our clime, or hot our blood as necelTarily 
to covet fuch a Frefco of cool fliades, as Ho- 
race meant by ^^gelidum nemus-y' whofe clofe 
above, but airy canopy below was indeed 
fitteft for the chori nympharum levei" of a 
lafcivious poet ; lince groves expofed to 
more open fun, might likewife embrown 
the face of each fair nympth, and check his 
growing love. 

Nor thofe now adays, (altho' fo us'd) 
where the nofturnal Orgia of Bacchus^ and 
the rites of the Cytherean Goddefs are per- 
formed under voluptuous fhades illuminated, 
at Vaiixhall and Ranelagh gardens^ who like 
rural nature beft, when habited like a Cour- 

tefan^ 



C 153 ] 

iefan^ as flie Is with like affedled airs there t 
Lafcivious urban Routes ! and happily un- 
known to country fwains. There were in- 
deed different intentions, and ufes made of 
fuch (hady Lt^ciy in the times of the anti- 
ent Druids^ as thereunder, by the Hght 
either of lamps, torches, or candles they 
performed fome forts of facrifices to their 
appropriate fabled gods : From which lights, 
as moft etymologifts imagine, thofe gloomy 
and opaque thickets, obtained the name of 
Luci. 

But the political ule of the Oak that 
I am upon, is, the growth of compleat- 
timber 3 which in my proceeding confines 
me to fay ; that, the cafe darkens yet upon 
the wifhfiil views of the beforementioned 
Oak proprietors — -That, by the very reafoh 
of the means and manner of the former ref- 
traint they have laid on their young plants, 
they will at laft produce vimenious lateral 
germens 5 when their final necelTary diftances 
from each other are allotted them — That, 
the like ftands not only on my own ob- 
fervations ; but that, I am enabled to join 
' thereto, that of the correct Dr. Hales in his 
Vegetable Staticks^'But that the juftnefs of 

neither 



C ] 

neither may be doubted, let it be conlidefed 
how it can be otherwife : For as there is 
fome contradlion in the inner veffels of fuch 
young Oaksj occafioned by the ftiort al- 
lowance their bodies have been fo long kept 
at. Upon fo great a change 5 Such is the 
unaccuftomed influence of the fun upon 
their naked fides-— Such the unufaal rare- 
fadion of the fap thereupon- — Such the ac- 
tivity then of the roots to encreafe the ftore 
of it — So fmall and llender their heads, and 
thereby the more incapable to receive an 
uncommon influx into thein — Such again 
the inofculations of the inward horizontal 
velTels with thofe that run ftrait up — And 
fuch is the acutenefs and polarity of the 
particles of which the fap is compofed — 
That the arbufcula will thereupon at laft 
break out in their fides-— 

I DECLINE ranging the whole aggregate, 
in the rear of this polTe of objeftions ^ as 
I think one half of them, if remembered, 
are fufficient to invalidate any reafons brought 
againft them. 

Whatever part of the foregoing ar- 
guments have previoufly been fufHciently 

4 inculcated 



[ iss ] 

inculcated by other Writers, none has ref-* 
cued me at all from animadverting upon 
the fingularity of the natural growth of this 
illuftrious plant in England ^ it would there- 
fore be unpardonable in me to omit it, as 
the whole of this I'raEl depends upon it. I 
call not that, properly, a natural manner of 
growth, v/hen it is confined and reftrained, 
by growing in too thick an Ajfemblage with 
I each other ; But my bufinefs now is to con- 
fider it, when felf fown, or otherwife, as 
not having too near a neighbourhood of 
any kind above ground, nor has been rivaU 
led by any mafterly fuffrutices below — It 
is thence to my purpofe to confider it like- 
wifc^ as arrived to twenty, or thirty foot in 
height, head and all, or a little under, ot 
over ; by which time if the heavens have 
been any thing favourable, fomething of 
judgment may be made of it's future pro- 
duce, altho' not a perfect one ; as no body 
then knows, what unfavourable ftrata's of 
earth it may afterwards meet with~But alas ! 
it is from the dubious heavens proceed it's 
obftrudion to afpiring, oftner than from 
mother tellus. It is therefore great impro- 
priety for me to call it, the Oak's natural 
manner of growing with us, in either cafe, 

at 



[ ^56 ] 

the ufual height and fize, it frequently 
does ; becaufe, it is no otherwife natural to 
it, after the injuries it has received from 
the inclemency of our air, than it can be 
faid to be natural to a young perfon to be 
dwarfed, after he has fuffered by external 
violence in fome of his limbs— -That, fuch 
is the unhappy difference between us, and 
our neighbours on the continent ^ of air in 
our climate in the fpring, and beginning of 
fummer oftentimes 5 appears from the uni- 
verfal confent of all travellers that have been 
any time there. The continenters having 
ever been much happier than we, in a con- 
tinued equality in the influences of vegeta- 
ting warmth, at thofe timely feafons ; which 
brings to my mind what Virgil fays in one 
of his GeorgicSy 

Ver adeo frondi nemorum^ ver utile fylvis^ 
Turn Pater omnipoiem Jcecundis imbribus 
tether^ 

Conjugis in gremium lata defcendit^ et 
omnes 

Magnus alit, magno commijlus corpore fatus ; 
Inque novos foles audent Je gramina into 
Credere^ n^ l i. ■ 1 m , m 



And 



[ 157 ] 

And again, 

ver magnus agehat 
Orbis^ et hybernis parcebant fatibus Euri, 

The inhabitants of Italy ^ nor any other part 
of the continent^ have fuch alternate viciffi- 
tudes of the weather, many times as we ; 
fallacious weather ! When it is winter it is 
continued winter with them, and the fuc- 
ceffive warmth likewife continual — Nor is it 
otherwife even in the northern part of the 
continent : Hence the Norway ^ hence the 
German Oaks have their procerity and clear- 
nefs in their bodies — Hence the great im- 
portation of Hambro pipe ftaves — To con- 
firm which inftances before by a m^ofh no- 
torious precedent ^ I need only refer to a 
treatife of Herejbachius^ printed fo lately 
as in the year 1695, and dedicated to the 
then King of Denmark 5 in which he pro- 
feffes, 

Noftra aetate in Viiejlphalia^ non pro- 
" cul ab arce Altenana, quercus extat 130, 
*^ pedum caudice ad priores ramos, cralE^ 
tudine trium ulnarum— 

Where note^ a German ell is faid to b^ 

three 



tBrec fifths , of an EngUjh j whence the 
much greater clear bodily length of that, 
to the talleft Mr. Evelyn has mentioned, is, 
if I compute right, as 78 is to 54 feet. 
Bleft German phcenix ! Then again as to the 
clearer bodily lengths of Norway Oaks ; 
every converter knows the fadt, altho' not 
the caufe. 

And fliall the Englijh Gardiner's fidllbc 
applauded, and his ingenuity be rewarded ? 
for cherifliing and protedling the bloom of 
foreign fruits, (the cates only of luxury) a- 
gainft the intemperature of vernal air in our 
clime — And fhall this plant, the minifte- 
rial guardian of every temporal good we 
enjoy, not be thought meritorious of our 
care ?— 

To fum up all, if the temper of the air 
is various, but, the confequential effefts 
thereof are conftant, in producing lateral 
germens and too early main arms, in this 
our clime to the obftruftion of more fre- 
quent bodily greater lengths — if, over and 
above, contagious infefts — Hot dry weather 
—And the falls of Honey dews — Are 
found to happen fo often as to force nature 

very 



[ ^59 ] 

very frequently to decline from her regular 
courfe, and thereupon to accommodate her 
felf to the mifrule of fjch accidents in £r/- 
tain : It muft furely be allowed, that upon 
every fuch involuntary perverfion, fome kind 
and able Affiftant is v^anting, timely to re- 
ftore her, to her prime deftinated motion. 
And may it not plainly be perceived, as far 
as an afped: of diflrefs can be faid to do 
it, that without fuch an officious prolocu- 
tor as I am, flie her felf invokes a reftora^ 
tion ? 

I SHOULD not have thought it fo mate- 
rial to dwell fo long upon the feveral caufes 
of lateral germens laft mentioned 5 and their 
and other reftridions to the corporal altitude 
of the Oak, but to prove them all in an 
equivocal fenfe, to be unnatural in Britain ^ 
or otherwife, natural to Britain, 

To obviate one unreafonable objedtion 
to the preceding minute dogmata of mine ; 
I believe in human kind, it would hardly 
be allowed a good argument againft educa- 
tion ; that fome great genius's have arrived 
at great knowledge without any. In like 
manner as it has been fhewn, that many 

Oaks 



Oaks have arrived at great perfedion poffi- 
bly without any difcipline of this kind : 
Still the argument in both cafes muft hold 
good againft any fuch objeftion; unlefs it 
could be prov'd, that neither could have been 
better'd by a dlftindt education. 

I PROCEED next again on the mifchiefs 
arifing from fuch accidents, on the Oak's 
natural manner (we'll call it) of growing in 
England : And firft, the lateral germens fo 
occafioned, when grown any thing large, 
render the timber coarfe, and fpoil the riving 
quality of it — Then if by chance, the roots 
meet with fome fortunate lower ftrata's of 
earth j the upper boughs get fuch a predo- 
minance as to kill the lower 5 whence fatal 
holes are caufed in the body when boughs 
rot off unregarded : And as cuftom is 
fecond nature, I may fay, naturally unre- 
garded — The third but more fatal effefts to 
an Oak's ever afpiring again in a clear body, 
are, contrarily, from the firft courfe of 
boughs, even when no bigger than the lizes 
I have mentioned to be debar kf^ gaining from 
rich ftrata's, fo much ftrength extraordinary, 
that all the upper T^ier are not ever able 
afterward to fuffocate them—however qua- 
lified 



[ «6« ] 

lified the earth was to carry out a tall tree : 
Becaufe the reclining pofture of their lower 
boughs fomething downward, is fuch (and 
that is ever the cafe when they are loaded 
with leaves) that, they draw to themfelves 
the afcending fap in the body, like fo many 
artificial Syphons^ fo that the fap in order to 
a higher afcent cannot flip by — 

Why this fhould obftrud: the clear fpiral 
growth and boiar height of an Oak, may be 
ealily conceived, if we confider that the roots 
of fuch great boughs, have croft and broke 
the perpendicular fap tubes in the body, 
which to be fure contribute moftly to any 
trees afpiring^ and acquired fo clofe a u- 
nion with them, that they draw all the fap 
arifing therein to themfelves, and whatever 
more they can extra(5l from other parts by 
lateral fu(2:ion, or (call it) attrad:ion. And 
by that means keep the upper boughs in 
too weak a condition, ever to become their 
fuperiors in the fenfe meant — And if the 
foil be weak, it is very frequent for the top, 
and boughs near the top, to die — Hence 
were there not frequent dafhes of rain, and 
great dews in fummer, which the upper 
boughs have the largell lliare of 3 there 

M would 



C »62 ] 

would be more frequent dead a-top trees 
than there are — • 

But if on the contrary the foil is very 
good, and confequently the Oak very vi- 
gorous i the effects thereon many times are, 
that there v^ill oftentimes be as much con- 
tent of coarfe timber in the head, as there is 
good in the body, and therefore the leaft 
profitable returns that can be made to the 
owner ^ 'uiz, from a great burthen of fire- 
wood in it's Briarean arms; unlefs fuch 
arms are likewife timber, and then there is 
great lofs to the owner, in the taking fo many 
girts in meafuring — 

Whence, how Angular a notion it might 
at firfl appear in m.e, I hope, I have plainly 
fliewn the fmgularity of the Oak's manner 
of growth in Britain ; What agents are in- 
ftrumental to it — What are the feveral inju- 
rious paflions of it — What refledlions led 
me to a falutary reftitution thereof — What 
are the natural events of fuch experiments — 
As likewife the neceffity of the interpofition 
of art — together with what the proper art, 
is, — And laftly, that tho' the organs of the 
Oak, have their primary formation from 
1 nature : 



[ ] 

nature : Yet that, it is human power at laft^ 
directs the moft plealing and moft profitable 
form — 

Having fpoken of one defedl of this 
puiflant, but withal too paffive plant, or 
rather a defedl of our clim^e in refpedt td 
varying warmth and cold 3 I airi come now 
on the contrary to fpeak more particularly 
of a climatic excellence of ours. For al- 
tho' heaven has not appropriated the Oak 
peculiarly to our territories, as it has the 
olive and the vine to foutheril climes ; vet 
lias it with partial and favourite diftindlion, 
in the J uper excellence of it*s conflituent parts 
made it fuperlatively fpecial to Great Bri- 
tain ; efpecialiy for naval ufeS, in which 
confifts it's principal valuable charaderiftic, 
above any that grows upon the continents 
of Europe^ or Afnerica. For it is known 
frora long experience, that, a fix poiind, or 
as Sailors call it, a fix pounder bullet, will 
pierce thro' a plank of a Britifi built iliip, 
and not leave a hole big enough to put even 
an egg in after it : Divine fignature of the 
merits of this vegetable Mars ! And this 
one fpecific quality enables oar floating 
caftles^ to rival and even gain the fuperi- 
M 2 Qiity 



C ] 

ority of thofe on land > whereon the uncef- 
fible ftone, or brick flies into millions of 
difunited parts. The truth of which let 
Torto bello^ and fort Chagre for ever fpeak 
to lateft Britannia'^ Ions. But fuch virtues 
of it, and more of the like, in oppofition 
to continential Oak, is better known, than 
priz'd — 

I DECLINE here fpeaking any further on 
that head, as I think enough has fuperven'd, 
without my ftaying to the laft, to be think- 
ing of palliating, if I could, on my own 
account, any impropriety in the management 
of my arguments on the Pradlices yet re- 
commended. 

And prior thereto, if it would mend the 
cafe, I fliould readily likewife exprefs my 
concern that with this unexercised Pen of 
mine, I have not been more able to make 
it delightful reading to all ingenious Oak 
proprietors. 

As to the mechanick Agents, I hope I 
have fucceeded better 3 being perfuaded I 
have more appropriately adapted my felf to 
them, by the plain delivery of my Rules, 
X and 



and the little mixture of uncommon thoughts. 
Nor is every remote circumftance of that 
kind entirely new and out of the way to 
them, who have ever taken a book in hand 
to read on fubjedrs bordering hereon— Indeed 
the field of vegetable nature, has been fo 
trav^rs'd within fifty years part, that if fuch 
a thing was defign'd, it were impofiible to 
lead them a circuit of any length in wholly 
untrodden paths : Yet it will moftly be 
found, that the paths th^y have before re- 
connoiter'd, have here a different termtna- 
iion — Upon the whole, I have the pleafure 
to think, and the fatisfadlion firmly to con- 
clude, that from their knowledge fo al- 
ready acquired, and their own prior expe- 
rimental knowledge in the feveral grov/ths 
of grain y and the kit chin gar den ^ and other 
agricolan produdlions 3 that I may fay to 
them, as Monfieur Rapin faid to his coun- 
try men on no unlike occafion ^ 

From further Laws, my confcious mind 
refrains, 

I write not to fuch rude, unpolifli'd fwains. 
As in old times haurmtwn^ country tilPd, 
For Art now reigns with nature in the Field. 



I THINK 



[ i66 ] 



I THINK it however proper, before I 
finally finifh this Chapter, to explain my 
felf as to what I lately laid [yet recommend-s 
ed] which was meant on the confideration, 
that it is not the happinefs of all gentlemen 
to be bleft with foils, that will at any time 

rroduce Oaks of fufficient fizes for naval 

J. 

timber ; But withal many of which are al- 
ready paft the fcantlings proposed for the 
difcipline mention'd : There being in di- 
vers parts of England^ w^oodfoils of a mid- 
dle compofition between the very poorefl^ 
and the moft propitious ; having at this time 
feveral Oaks thereon, which tho' arrived to 
ten feet, would rarely ever reach fifteen, for 
the life of a carpenter : hopelefs of any re- 
vivifcence ! being endu'd with very little 
more power, than in their latter periods to 
preferve themfelves onward in a living ftate ; 
at moll grow but very flowly, even imper- 
ceptibly. And yet if the fame are taken be- 
fore of entirely finiilit grov>ths, are greatly 
to be improv'd y at leaft fet forward grow- 
ing, by a very different— very eafy — and 
little expenfive mechanifm — I am come to. 
fay that the very pooreft Oaks may be there- 
by better'd. 



[ i67 ] 



But as I included not the fame among 
the heads mentioned at the beginning, and 
as it is likely I might have been pardoned 
by fome, if I had not wrote fo much al- 
ready upon the other I fhall decHne the 
faying any thing in this difcourfe thereof : 
But, by way of Peroration^ I take this oc- 
calion to profefs, that whatever difrepute 
fpeculative reafoning may attempt to bring 
upon the foregoing praftlce — Or aHke may 
arife from the mifcondud: of an empirical 
hand — Or even the mifchance of a lingle 
mifcarriage or two of the judicious — And 
then only by fome almoft unprecedented mal- 
influence of the foils, or feafons — Or poffi- 
bly by fome Idiofyncracy in the plants them- 
felves — The like on trial, will be found in- 
cidents in that cafe, which will be, I truft, 
vaftly overpowered by the beautiful fuccelTes 
of great multitudes of others : And that, 
whether or no I have realis'd the merits of 
that mechanifm by dint of argument. 



M 4 CHAP, 



[ 168 ] 




CHAPTER VI. 

TH E T'heories and praBical parts on 
the fubjefts I purposed here to treat 
of, being moftly ended ; it may 
not be impertinent to take a view of fome 
points thereof in a more extenlive poHtical 
— and different pleafurable light — And to 
offer reafons why fome foils are proper to 
make choice of, for planting new woods 
upon, and fome are not — Together with 
the means and manner not only of forijoard- 
ing the growth of the Oak from an acorn, 
but thereby the readier advancing that beau- 
teous favage to the higheft perfedlion of 
it's nature- — To defcant alfo on the effenti- 
als of the vegetation of it with us— And 
to add a few moral and phylical refledli- 
ons further upon it, and in the conclufi- 
on fome emblematick illuftrations on the 
whole— 



But 



[ i69 ] 



But on fo vacant an occafion, and in 
regard to the T/"//^ hereof and the HomO" 
nymia I have in part afTum'd ; I crave to 
be indulged the liberty firft, of premifing a 
few animadverfions on the'antient Britijb 
Druids ; as likev^ife becaufe I have fo long 
laboured (tho' a la ma?tiere riifiique) to re- 
build their nemorous temples : In refped: 
to which, it might indeed have prov'd a 
more agreeable amufement to a curious an- 
tiquary, had I been able to have enriched 
the Ichnography by me exhibited, with' 
authorities coUedled from their antient Ar^ 
chives^ to countenance fuch my manner: 
But all memorial of that fort is periOit with 
them ; and it is following the chace with- 
out any fcent; and therefore my pretenii- 
ons are no higher, (however fo, ambitious 
enough,) than having offered at a lefs in- 
ftruftive, at leaft a lefs entertaining equiva- 
lent — 

That the antient Druids had fome kind 
of manner of fuch architedture, is highly 
probable 5 fince many Latin authors have 
cried them up to have been men of univer- 
fal learning — In particular Montamis inti- 
mates. 



[X70] 

mates, that they were " caufarwrn ?iaiu» 
ralium jludiofi' — As their manfes were en- 
tirely in woods, having the objeds meant, 
continually before their eyes — And as they 
are known to have been the unfortunate 
idolatrous religious of their time, and their 
principles for ought they could forefee, were 
likely to continue to lateft ages j we may 
very reafonably conclude, that not taking 
up with the natural produftions only of 
this royal plant, which they found in Bri- 
tain at their early coming, they might at firft 
thought difcover, that by applying art to 
nature, they might attain a more venera- 
ble grandeur and ftatelinefs to fuch their 
temples ; not without fome view of the 
greater veneration accruable likewife there- 
by, meaning the fruits of veneration, ta 
ihemfelves and their defcendants— 

I KNOW not v/hether I fhould defervc 
any thanks from them, if they were living, 
to make a facrifice of their moral honefty, 
to compliment their underftanding ; fo far 
as to affert, that there is good reafon to 
think, notwithftanding the number of their 
idols, themfelves were only Polytheijls in 
£hew, to amufe the vulgar j as they have 

advocates 



f 171 ] 

advocates on the latter fide, that they had 
difcover'd by the light of nature, one only 
God — As therefore the Oak above all other 
parts of the lower creation lhar'd their moft 
favourite afFedions, from the captivating 
form of it*s outward frontifpiece— it's lofty 
colonnade gilt with filver'd bark — it's aw- 
ful venerable and majeflick head, together 
with the many grand and magnificent ufes 
it was capable of being put to in their 
times — Nor do I offer thefe as all the con- 
fiderations thereupon, which they might be 
invited to look up to one fole divine Being 
for the author. And I believe there is no 
believer of the like kind now but has feme 
one more favourite proof than other of the 
fame, from his own appropriate genius. 
Galen is faid to have received his conviili-- 
on of the like fort, from the fkin of the lower 
part of the foot. 

For my own part I (hould not think I 
did my duty as a ?nodern Druid, did I not 
glorify the divine Being, over and above 
the confiderations mentioned, for that Group 
of miracles that is to be found within it, 
fince the microfcope has open'd the cabi- 
net, and difcovered truths which other* 

wife 



C 172 ] 

wife would have been accounted fables. 
But Dr. Grew in his anatomy of vegetables, 
and Mr. Ray in his wifdom of God in the 
creation, have nearly exhaufted that part of 
my fubjefl: : Sufficient antidotes againfh a- 
theifm ! 

Wherefore I proceed to the other ar- 
ticles mentioned ; and the lirft confideration 
that prefents it's felf, is, the eftimate of the 
comparative value of equal returns, that 
may reafonably be made of the enfuing 
growths of Oaks, with money put out to u- 
fury : There being no likelihood, but when 
there comes a peace, the national intereft on 
money will be reduc'd to three per Cent : 
For even now in time of War, the Crown 
' — The Publick — And the Merchant are all 
pleading of the Parliament for it. Nor can 
we trade upon equal footing with the Hoi- 
landers^ till it is fo. Which fuppos'd re- 
dudtion yields this triumph to it's new rival ; 
that the fame is liable to no bad fecurities, 
either on bond^ or mortgage^ or mifchance 
of jire^ or failure of funds^ or ba7ik. 

And what I think well fupports this com- 
parative computation, is, that the annual 

growth 



[ ^73 1 

growth of a young Oak, manag'd after the 
manner prefcrib'd ; becomes the more like- 
wife in quantity of timber than it other- 
wife, or naturally would do : Which altho' 
deducible from what has before been faid, 
this occafion requires me again to fpecify ; 
as alfo to revive the notice of the materia! 
confideration of the advance of fuch Oaks 
formal value afterward : Both which oc- 
currences alone, without naming any more,, 
no doubt will make the yearly encreafe of 
this plant to amount to three fer Cent, ad 
'Valorem in every period of time to it's full 
maturity, that any fuch are near the lize of 
timber. 

I NEED not be told that in the ordinary 
growth of undifciplin'd Oaks, fuch an efti- 
mate is fet too high, that is to fay, one with 
another 3 but fear not being told fo in this 
cafe ; altho' I pretend not to be afTur'd of 
the contrary by any jlatick proof And 
what would further countenance this inti-» 
mation, is, if I likewifs call to mind the 
fifing value of Oak timber, that is large. 

But what needs no proof, is, that tim- 
ber pays no taxes/ unprecedented property! 

Angular 



C 174 ] 

Angular exemption ! The only emblem of 
civil liberty left to an EngUJh man. 

Yet, even admitting that for many ge- 
nerationSj there was a continual peace and 
fmall taxes ; is there any likelier means for 
all landed gentlemen to perpetuate a genteel 
fufEciency to their prefent and future oS- 
fpring, than by rearing up and preferving a 
good ftock of Oak timber ? As the fame^ 
may happily come in feafon one day to pre- 
vent the difmembering of the free hold, or 
mortgaging, which many times proves 
worfe ; and that either by fome unforefeen 
misfortune to the owner himfelf — Or in 
cafe of reformation, to falvc the errors of an 
extravagant heir — Or for what may and 
ought to be held in mind, 'viz, the call of 
an honourable provifion for younger chil- 
dren — For the want of which on occafion 
of a numerous ilTue ^ eftates that are not over- 
large, in fome improvident families that 
way 'y very frequently dwindle away, and 
come to nothing. The younger progeny 
at leaf!: having nothing but a few old pic- 
tures, or coat of ArmSy to fhew from 
whence they are defcended. Sad emblems 
of pity ! And what young gentleman is 

there^ 



[ 175 ] 

there, that enters into a married ftate, that 
is not liable to fuch cafualties ? Which are 
ftrong inducements not only to keep up his 
prefent ftock of timber, but to raife more. 

It is faid, we have one great family in 
England^ that fo happy a refervoir has, by 
reafon of one, or other of the beforemen- 
tion'd accidents, been preferv'd from de- 
clining, three times in one century. Bleft 
reftorative ! 

I AM not all this while thinking of the 
Landed, Navy, or Army great officers, or 
thofe in high pofts, in any other parts of 
the adminiftration ; who ufually are not long 
in making provifion otherways for fuch 
preffing occafions. But the Crown in all it^s 
numerous colle(fLion, has not places for all 
that are delirous, I might perhaps fay, many 
times want, to ferve themfelves and their 
country fo honourably. 

And perifions never come to the fhare of 
an honeft country gentleman : Who is 
therefore doom'd (if I may fo call it) to live 
wholly on his rents ; and whofe neceflary 
policy is become the flow ceconomy of fav- 



[ 176 ] 

ing, or laying up in ftore, for the prudential 
purpofes mentioned 3 fomething more, or 
lefs at every year's end — Or what is every 
whit as poffible, againft any further fub- 
duftion out of his private income, to fup- 
ply the exigencies of the ftate. Now of 
all favings in a gentlemanlike way, fure 
that of timber-faving is ordinarily for fuch, 
the Eafieft— Sureft— and the Delightfulleft 
— ^If it makes me not too oftenfively guilty, 
as perhaps many times before, of inappro- 
priate initial capital letters, and of lines, 
which however in part, I am not without 
prefent great authority for. Being yet, by me 
defign*d as Breaks chiefly to a hafty reader. 

None fure, of that worthy fet of men 
laft addrefs'd to, that are advanced in life ; 
need be admoniili^d by me, that fpecie left 
by a parent at his deceafe, is too frequently 
carried oif, by one needlefs invention, or 
other, in cafe the heir be young ; while in 
the time it will neceffarily take him to turn 
timber into calh (unlefs he is infatuated e- 
nough to lump it away) and fome of his 
friends intervening ; there is a very great 
probability of the young goiitleman's get- 
ting rid of his unadvised defires : At leaft 

he 



[ 177 ] 

will not part with thofe Jlars and garferi 
of his eftate for toys. For no lefs is my 
vanity to think, they will appear to even 
him^ if manag'd by the rules prefcrib'd. 

•The cafe is the fame as ready money^^ 
what the leoatee leaves behind him in South- 
fea fiock^ Bank notes^ or Lidia bonds. And 
what Jiock is there like a Jiock of timber^ 
for making returns to the owner with more 
Steadinefs— Security— -and Equality in the 
end ? 

Timber then, is a legacy of an inter- 
mediate permxanency, between the polTeffi- 
ons mention'd, and Fee fimple, or terra 
Jirma : Even more fix'd than money on 
mortgage, which is many times paid in 5 
whether the lender will, or no : What no 
glaring trifle can vifibly appear in compe- 
tition with : Even diamonds muft yield to 
it's luftre, as they pay not their owners for 
prefer viiig. Wherefore as jewels like flow- 
ers and many other, both natural and ar-* 
tificial ornaments 5 have their admirers only 
for their gracefulnefs and beauty : How 
much better are thofe objeils for gentlemen 
to place their admiration on y where both 

N grandeur 



grandeur and gain are attendants upon 
beauty ? Bleft donation ! to a fon where 
the father has Hv'd fo providently, as not 
to have given occafion to have it cut down 
to pay his debts ; even otherwife happy 
donation ! 

Further woods are highly ferviceable 
to one great pleafure of a country life, as, 
(now the fields are clear'd of all harbour, 
by the monopoly of the plough) they are 
the only nurferies of game ; and they who 
are not lovers of the perfuit, are generally 
the greateft of the entertainment. Where- 
fore that plenty of game may never be 
wanting ; it is even become neceffary for all 
country gentlemen, that are lovers either 
of the fporting part, or eating, to plant 
more groves near their villa's • and not only 
fo, but cut off the irregular angles of all 
large enclofures, within any reafonable dif- 
tance of their Seats ^ and turn them like- 
wife, after they are well fenc'd in, into 
Oak platoons ^ which altho' a military term, 
has been fome time adopted into the art 
of rural gardening. Nor can there be 
any greater natural beauty added to the 
outer borders of an eflate, than tlje check- 
ering 



efing it all over with tliefe peaceful pla-^ 

tOO?2S, 

I HAVE often wonder 'd that our moft 
ingenious deiigners in extenlive gardenings 
have not before now, recommended them- 
felyes to the nobility and gentry, by the in- 
vention of fach campeftrian decorations ; 
The expence would be but little in the 
fencing part, there being two fides already 
done to their hands, and the keeping next 
to nothing. The pleafure they give con- 
fifting in walking, or riding round them on 
the outfide, and no lefs in viewing them at 
a diftance. It matters not how foul, or 
overgrown with bufhes they are within, for 
the purpofes mentioned. 

Were it my bufinefs to contrive to 
pleafe the taft of men of fortune it fhould 
be this way^ at leaft this fliould be one : 
As thefe new fprung up interior Royalties 
(if for the fake of the following meaning i 
may be pardon'd that denomination) will be 
a kind of vifible and tacit reftraint, with- 
out further notice, upon any gentlemen that 
are ftrangers invading them, and more fo 
upon others, without leave 5 as fuch en- 
N z trenchments, 



[ »8o ] 

trenchments, not only with more outwafd 
fteWj but more apparent coftly right pro- 
claim the property of that kind therein 
to belong to the land-owner of fuch colo- 
nies. 

Another advantage therefrom^ is, that 
poachers and f72arers cannot go in and out 
from thence^ but they will be in danger of 
being heard, or feen. And whoever firft 
has thefe fanftuaries, will have all the near 
adjoining game, which likewife will take 
to them when the enclofures are never fo 
young. 

And on fmall eftates thefe fjhulce tend 
to make a great {hew of timber with a lit- 
tle; as the feveral cantonments, in content 
of the whole, of no more than fix or eight 
acres of land, would infallibly do. 

In fmall fields, if the acute angles a- 
mounted to no more than a quarter of an 
acre, they would have a proportionate ef- 
fed: ; and when the Oaks were well grown 
the new made fence, on their account, might 
at pleafure be beaten down, and lie in com- 
mon with the proper field again : Where- 
fore 



[ i8. ] 

fore thefe campejlrian^ would not be like 
many hoi'-tenjian pretty neffes, without profit.: 
During fuch enclofure and after, (as they 
would in that time be got to a good head) 
the fpace between the trees, might be made 
an excellent nurfery for bufhes 3 v/hich tho' 
I hinted before, I did not obferve how 
fcarce a commodity they are grown, for 
the ufe of the occupier of the adjoining 
lands \ which would induce even a tenant 
upon leafe, for the lefs confideration to part 
with fuch angles ; as they are the more trou-^ 
blefome to plough. Nor is there any form 
that the like number of Oaks will make fo 
grand and ftowy an appearance in, as in a 
triangle. 

These towering thickets^ as I think I 
may properly call them, (which alone will 
prevent the planter's name being throv/n in- 
to his grave with him) may be much 
thicker planted with Oaks than large woods \ 
Since they will of courfe have on their tri- 
angular fides more air; and require inwardly 
fo much fpace neither, if they are not de- 
fign'd for large timber. The cafe is fir 
otherwife in woods new planted in frefh and 
vigorous foils 3 efpecially where the planter 

N 3 ha? 



[ ] 

lias a view of obliging pojierity with mag- 
nalian growths. 

Among the great variety of methods 
laid down by preceding writers for wood- 
planting ; I have met with none Angularly 
dired:ed to that end, at leaft not fufficiently ^ 
I will therefore officioufly venture to give 
my adventurous Idea of one ; Which alfo 
over and above the other confiderations, I 
fhould recommend particularly to thofe, 
who would be much pleas' d to fee the very 
great efforts, that nature with moderate af- 
fiftance can make in fuch produdtions, du- 
ring their ow7i life ; and which, if of any 
continuance, even the planter himfelf will 
have no fmall enjoyment of ; as even in the 
firft ftages of their lives, fuch predominant 
plants have appropriate charms : Might I 
not likev/ife fay, have the greatnefs of infant 
tiobles to demand our homage in their nurfes 
arms ? Let but any man of letters that has 
a taft of this kind, be polTeft of fuch young 
objedis, and he will need no further argu- 
ments, to incite his admiration of the early 
efforts of their vegetable foul ; if with the 
Bijldop of Cloyne I may be allow'd fo to fpeak 
«^fee his 

But, 



C ] 

But, he that muft owe all his know- 
ledge of fuch things, to the labour'd in- 
formation of others, without any reflex 
notions of his own ; will have but an im- 
perfedl comprehenfion of fuch matters — Or 
even he that has competent qualifications 
that v/ay, if he is indifpos'd to fuch kind 
of refled:ions — 

Yet are the minuteft objedrs of that 
kind fo far from being below, or unwor- 
thy the confideration of the ivifejl m.an • 
that the greateft philofopher^ that has yet 
liv'd, has never ventured to declare his fuf- 
jficiency fully to comprehend the invifible 
manner of the workings of nature, in their 
generation, nutrition, and accretion. 

But as feme larger apparatus is proper 
for the introduction of fuch my Idea^ I 
fliall endeavour to carry thofe depending mat- 
ters further, and connect them clofer, on 
this firft fylvan fcene j than has been done 
by former writers on the like : Which 
will fave thofe the trouble, who are no a- 
depts herein, of ' turning over a great many 
fylvatick authors, and at laft come fhort 

N 4 of 



I 



[l84] 

of what 1 intended at leaft, to write there- 
on. 

Still before I go about formally to 
fhew, what human mechanifm is propereft 
to prom-ote a kindly acceleration of the 
growth of thefe no indocile plants ; it is con- 
venient firft to difcufs further fome points on 
the nature of vegeiatio?i ; with refped: to 
fuch of the elements more particularly con- 
cerned therein : Whereon it is to be noted, 
that with the utmoft art, the grandeft Oaks 
are not to be made the produce of all foils 
indifcriminately. 

For vain is any fuch hope in foils 
whofe underftrata's are a dry, £harp gravel 
— Or barren fand — Or very rocky — Or that 
are an unmixt chalk — Or impenetrably ftiff 
and folid, and withal poor and jejune — 
Which is ufually the cafe of the latter ; fo 
as hardly to admit entrance, to the longeft 
autumnal rains ; by reafon of the almoft 
lapideal continuity of their parts. 

Now, in the former foils, there is no 
moifture left, before half the fummer, or- 
dinarily, is out: For in fuch, the water 

coming 



C 185 ]! 

coming from the heavens, very quickly per- 
colates, thro' both their fuperficies and fub- 
latent parts, and with it the vegetating par- 
ticles therein contained. 

Again in their reverfe, viz, in a foil 
too clofely compacted, nor nitrous fnov^ 
water in winter 5 nor folar heat in fummer, 
can find admittance ; infomuch that no plant 
that roots deep, as the Oak is known to do, 
can thrive therein. 

But the territories I fhould choofe for 
thefe foreftian kings underground, (and they 
are beft found out by digging, or boring) is, 
where the fame is four foot deep, and the 
deeper the better, a kindly clay — Or fat 
loam^ — Or marl — Wherein the moifture rea- 
dily enough enters, and long enough refides, 
bounteoufly to fupport the thirtieft plants, 
throughout the fummer, or even autumnal 
fcorching heats. And lands proper enough, 
may likely be found in every county in Eng- 
land of that kind : and whofe fuperficies is 
not naturally over kindly, either for grafs 
or grain ; and confequently of no very high 
eftimation otherways. 



Besides 



[ ] 



Besides which I fhould fay, that fuch 
a fpecies of earth, is pervious to a fufHcient 
jfhare only, of air impregnated with folar 
heat 5 as in the too loofe and friable foils 
there is more than necelTary : Again there is 
lefs, in the overftiff ; beneficently to ex- 
cite the very lowermoft roots of an Oak to 
a progreffive vegetation, and the furplus fluid 
therein which they want not, for their ne- 
celTary occafions, to tranfmit above. 

There is alfo more fulphur and oil^ 
for fuch roots to extrad: out of the earths 
recommended, and thereby more folid parts, 
for a more plentiful fixation into folid wood. 
But this fulphureous, oily folidity in the 
fap of an Oak, is chiefly in the height of 
fummer ; as it has been found to be very 
watery, and devoid of fuch confiftencies in 
the fpring ; which poflibly may be the 
reafon that makes it*s fhoots fo impatient at 
that time, in refpeft to Cold, 

I PROCEED to fay, that hence great 
care is furely to be taken to fuit any plant 
to it's proper genial bed. Since not man a- 
lone 5 or other animate beings i but all the 

vegetable 



[ i87 ] 

vegetable part of the creation likewife, na- 
ture in that refpect has endu'd, in an in- 
ferior fenfe, with paffion of eager love and 
averfion. 

With fo little flock of philofophy as I 
have, if it would not look too much like 
my pretending to be a compleat fyjlematick 
writer 5 not only on the apparent, but like- 
wife on the invilible caufes, and the manner 
of the vegetation of this miraculous plant ; 
I fhould take this occ^^fion, with more be- 
coming prefumption, to fay, that immedi- 
ately after an acorn has been entirely in- 
dependent of it's fubliftence from the two 
lobes ; the future encreafe thereof, is occa- 
lion'd by alien, but withal homogeneous par- 
ticles brought thereto, by the means of water ; 
and that as the fame does abound more, or 
lefs therewith, the growth of fuch plant is 
liiore, or lefs only. 

Accordingly that if water were ftridly 
fimple and devoid of all foreign principles ; 
it felf only would promote little, or no ac- 
cretion of a plant. And that altho' water, 
on accurate probations, is allowed to be no 
where a Jimpk element in the whole fublu- 

nary 



[x88] 

nary univcrfe ; Yet that the difproportion of 
fuch inhaerent fecundity is very great, in 
only the known inllances of well, and rain 
Water. 

Again, as to the beft of waters, 'viz. 
thofe immediately from the heavens (for 
thofe artificially impregnated with lixivious 
falts, have nothing to do here) it's influence 
on the vegetation of fuch plants as Oaks, 
is, more, or lefs, according as what fpecies 
of lands they grow upon : As the fat, 
unftuous clays, and foils of like contexture, 
not only retain the water of any kind, but 
yield thereto, a colliquated nutriment of 
their own, congruoufly adapted to the pores 
of the roots ; by which alTociation with the 
aforefaid fluids, the far better growth of the 
Oaks is promoted, than in Hungry — Sandy 
— Light earths — which have nothing but 
the water, fo long as it lafts to forward 
them. 

Hence, the quantity, or proportion of 
this auxiliary pofle, in the fublatent ftrata's 
of earth, in union with the rain from heaven, 
as it abounds more, or lefs, is, the main 
guidance to the proprietor to afcertain the 

determinate 



determinate modus of the proper height to 
raife his Oaks 5 in which cafe, it is better 
to under, than over do. 

There is nothing more certain, if it 
need be faid over again, than that there is a 
Maximum quod fic^ as Mr. Ray expreifes 
it, in all vegetables : Or to fpeak in this 
cafe more exprefsly, a determinate propor- 
tion of parts, beyond which, the diiiiniTt 
fpecies of earth they grow in, cannot pro- 
perly carry them cut. 

Nor is a fufiicient judicial knowled^ 
therein one way, or the other, unattainable 
by any man of fenfe ; as a judgment many 
times may be made at fight, from the gui- 
dance of fome natural growths (making al- 
lowance for the errors before hinted, which 
nature is fubjefl: to) in one and the fani€ 
earth — or nearly adjacent — or otherwife, on 
juft examination, fimilar earths 3 in order 
to regulate the difcretionary height at laft, 
of the clear bodies of his trees, according 
to the juft capacity of his foil— But let not 
the natural forms of low-boughing trees, fo 
the fame have large heads, with their main 
arms inclining to fuch erednefs and ftrait- 

nefs, 



[ ] 

nefs, as is poffible ; provoke his fears that 
the like foil will not carry forth a tall 
bodied tree, as the like fap very probably 
from whence fo large a head was generated, 
will under the diredion of the orthodox Me- 
thodifm before laid down, fully anfwer his 
defires. 

In cafe no kind of fuch governing pre- 
cedents near at hand are to be found, there 
ftill remain the direfliory rules infcrib'd by 
me, in relation to the diagnofticks of the 
ability that way, or impotence of the feveral 
foils, I have lately mention'd; which will 
be a great help to the ingenious agent, pro- 
vided the defcription be like wife attended to, 
of the falubrity, or infalubrity of fuch Oaks, 
in exemplar'd lituations, when grown up 
to near the content of timber. But it is 
no way unlikely that fuch final modus may 
be afcertain'd upon much clearer princi- 
ples by fome future adventurers. But who 
I doubt not will agree with me, that in one 
and the fame fuperficial foil, the agent will 
find caufe to vary his hand, as to the height 
of the clear bodies of Oaks therein ; as the 
underftrata's are fo various, and why fhfDuld 
I mention what is more out of human fight, 

viz. 



C ] 

njiz, the variety of their own conftitutions, 
as to good, or bad, originally. 

And now I think I have pretty near, if 
not wholly done with philofophifing ; to 
proceed upon a certainty, in behalf of the 
idea proposed at firft, but which I muft al- 
fo call a fingularifyy as not having been 
animadverted on either pro, or con, by any 
former writers in their way of planting 
woods. 

The cafe is, I would recommend that 
there be no undergrowth in fuch new plant- 
ed woods but hajel. That Humble Low 
growing plant — Fleet rooting — and not Ra- 
venous of moifture — offering it's felf as the 
moft eligible for fuch ends above any other. 
For at no age is it fo afpiring, as to obftrud: 
the godlike influence of the fun — driving 
rains — and fufficient air — from cherifhing 
it*s natural fuperiors ; like to Afh — Sallow 
—Birch— 

It likewife rivals even afli for the ufe of 
the cooper, as fylva ccedua ; and altho' the 
growth thereof in bulk, is not fo large as 
any of the other forts^ for firewood-, it makes 

it 



[ 192 ] 

it up in value for feveral more mechanicks i 
And where it lies within the reach of fheep 
walks, is preferable to afli it's felf. I have 
faid nothing of the detriment, from the un- 
dergrowth of it's own kind, viz. Oak ; as 
it may be colledied from what has long 
iince been urg'd, to be the moA injurious 
of all. 

As to many other particulars, I fliall not 
vary overmuch in fubftance from fome other 
modern writers ; namely, as to the prepara- 
tion of the land, and the propereft manner 
of planting the acorns and hafel nuts ^ let 
the ground thereto intended, be fallowed 
in like manner as for wheat, or beans, and 
fometime in Odlober following, let the fame 
be fown with a proper proportion of hafel 
nuts and horfe, or garden beans promifcu- 
oufly, unlefs the owner choofes wheat : 
Likewife let many more than a bare fuffi- 
cient number of acorns be gathered from fall 
timbers, rather than pollards, in their due 
feafon, and inftantly put into fand, Jlratuni 
fuper Jiratum^ where mice cannot come at 
them ; in order that the beft may be culPd 
out for fetting, at the time I fhall mention. 



4 



As 



[ m 3 

As foon as the autumnal rains are faU'tt^ 
which very likely will be before Novem- 
ber 3 thirty holes fhould be made on every 
acre : Which number would be too many 
by near a third, were the produce not to be 
educated to the heights mentioned 5 by which 
means I might fay near one third is got pru-^^ 
dently in number, and more than a third 
in good quality and value afterward, upon 
every acre, than when as ordinarily ma- 
naged. 

Let like wife every hole be made fix 
foot diameter, and four fpade-bit deep ; the 
earth thence taken may be thrown in a- 
gain promifcuoufly 5 ftrewing by hand at 
the fame inftant, a fmall quantity of ftraw^ 
or ftubble at proper intervals, to be equal- 
ly intermixt ; in order to keep the earth 
from too compad: a reunion. By this 
means the earth of every hole will lie near 
a foot higher, even when fettl'd, than the 
area of the field ; which will be a great 
means to caufe the horizontal roots of the 
Oaks to enter, when time comes^ the fu- 
perficies of the adjoining foil, wherein the 
rieheft pabulum for them lies ; and feafi: 

P themfelvet 



t 194- ] 

themfelves the more on the lufcious aliment 
of fummer rains ; which if deeper in the 
ground would not reach them, neither fo 
frequently-^nor effedually— 

In the center of every fuch filPd up hole^ 
after the earth is a little fettl'd > let a fmall 
one be made about the fize of a bufhel ^ 
fpreading what thence arifes upon the former 
earth ; let the faid little cavity, be prefently 
again fiU'd with fome well digefted mold, 
not muck ^ arifen from fome headland long 
before dug up- — Or from fome common — Or 
greenfward in the high way— Or fcowerings 
©f ditches-^Or pond mud well ventilated— 

The Chriftmas after being come ; by 
which time, the field mice have laid up 
their winter provifions ^ let the acorns be 
taken out of their occafional refidence : Be- 
caufe by that time they v/ill be chickt 5 and 
half a dozen of the moft promiling of them, 
be planted about three inches deep, within 
the eompafs of every one of the fmall 
holes ; prefling the earth down again gently 
0ver them 3 



Tkb 



The hafle nuts — ^^Gr beans—Or whedt 
cieftroy'd to the content of the diameter of 
fuch holesj being of very fmall coniiderati- 
on. I think furthier to intimate that I make 
hot any account of the ftraw, or ftubble, 
on account of it's fertility when digefted- 
that it will communicate to the earth ; but 
only as it will be a future means to facili- 
tate the entrance of the very tender fibres 
of the roots into the fame^ thro' fuch little 
meatuses as tht Hubble^ or ftraw will caufe 
when rotted. 

There are who prefer Oak-fet to a* 
corns, on account of the hazard of mice^ 
cutting the fame down to the ground at 
two years end^ and thereafter leading up 
the moft mafterly Ihoot only. 

I SHOULD be guilty of ah omiffion to 
thofe that are not vers'd in the moft elegant 
defigns of this kind ; not to intimate that 
heither fort^ ftiould be planted in ftrait linesj 
laving where walks, or vifta's are intended i 
but after a natural manner : Art therein ap- 
pearing beft in mafquerade. Refemblance 
-^Rule— Regularity- — That are often juftly 

O 2 made 



[ 196 ] 

made ufe of in other plantations have no- 
thing to do here ; fmce the Europeans have 
adopted the true finefs of tafle of the Afta- 
tics^ in that and many other cafes : Where- 
in fuch objedls (to fay only agreeably con- 
fus'd, would be below the dignity of the 
idea, well known in China by their idiom 
of Sharawadgi) have much the precedence, 
of a Stiff— Starch'd— Studied order. Well 
exprefs'd by the Latins^ on other accounts 
by dijparifate pulchrior, A notorious in- 
fiance we have now of the like Britijh in- 
novation, is, in the modern preference given 
to ferpentine Rivers^ before large ftrait ca- 
nals. But had I not found the opinion cur- 
rent, of fuch precedent being borrowed from 
the Chinefe, I fliould rather have thought 
we had taken.it from the Deity's own man- 
ner, of planting woods, and modeling the 
ftarry heavens. 

Come we now to the formidable efti- 
mate of the recommended, much to do — ^ 
Why truly the charge extraordinary of the 
foregoing fcheme, to the ufual manner of 
planting woods, is fuch a trifle, to thofe 
who are difpos'd to convert lands to fuch 
great purpofes ; that if any compute were 

to 



r 197 ] 

to be made, it fhould rather be, what 
more beneficial returns were to be made ia 
the end, this way, than the common. 

In reference to which further ; how 
weak would even the plaineft Zany farmer 
now adays think any one argued ? That be- 
caufe corn, in his great grandfather's time, 
did in fome proportion grow, with Httle 
cultivation, and without any artificial coft, 
but ploughing ^ that, therefore all more for^ 
warding means are aeedlefs. 

I MENTIONED not that after a year or 
two, the moll mafterly young plant fliould 
be left ftanding — Or that for a fq\v years the. 
earth about the ftanders, fliould be kept 
clear from weeds — Or put the owner in mind 
of good fences^Becaufe they are fo obvious 
requilites 5 that I think no body will fet a- 
bout planting a wood, with uncommon care^ 
that need be told of either. 

It might indeed have been intimated^ 
that if it were eligible to the owner j the 
hafles after twenty years growth might be 
grubb'd up again — Or that in countries 
whefc fylva cadua is much wanted, the 

O 3 numl^^iC 



[198] 

number of Oaks propos'd on an acre might 
be reduc'd, to give the fame more influence 
of the heavens — More fpecies both of kind- 
ly, or unkindly foils for woods might like- 
wife have been mentioned : But I have de- 
clined enlarging thereon, as in a good mea- 
fure the fame has been treated of, by every 
lylvatick v^riter this laft century 5 from 
whom may be further coUeded, what are 
proper for the Oak, and what are not : 
Yet even the late Mr. Switzer, among the 
reft, contrary to his own pradtice in other 
cafes, has inadvertently omitted, or at beft 
been too fparing, in giving reafons for the 
propriety, or impropriety of either, or to 
ufe his own word, in other cafes — Why. 

Once more in reference to an over- 
numerous plant of Oaks in refpedl to their 
propinquity' to each other 5 and therewith, 
to conclude this head, and all preceding ar- 
guments thereupon : Were I to take upon 
me to be magifterial herein ^ it fhould be to 
enforce thereto, the application of xht Roman 
proverb, 'viz, that the mediety is more (in 
the end) than the whole. 



[ '99 ] 



Next, to draw to a Conclufion of the 
Whole — Some circumftances immediately 
following, and indeed the outward appear'- 
ances of this entire Tra6t, give me the un- 
avoidable caufe to fuggeft more exprefsly 
than at firft, that I would not be thought by 
my Stricture of this Sylvan Beauty out of 
the vaft Campaign of Nature, and this im^ 
perfedt Publication of my Difcoveries there^ 
on, to have the determinate intention to ac- 
quire to my felf a Trophy, tho' but a very 
(iiminutive one of Fame, or any thing elfe. 
It being certain that I {hould much rather 
have chofen to have made this my firft fmall 
appearance in the Literary world incognito 
wholly, and confequently to have publiiht 
no local memoirs at leaft of my adventures 
of this kind ^ but to have let the whole have 
come unguarranteed abroad, like a daughter 
of the Clouds, or the offspring of Night y 
if I could have perfuaded miy felf, that the 
management of my paft Arguments, had 
been as clearly convincing of the efficacy of 
the more feafible Pradice, as the declarative 
power of courfe muft be, of giving ocular 
Demonftration of the real Succefs of the mcft 
^npronufing, 

Q 4 Yet 



[ 200 ] 



Yet the prototypes thereof now alluded 
to, are not to young promifing Oaks j which 
nature of her felf had fo kindly formed, as 
to need little, or no reformation, *viz, fuch 
feledt plants, as either the happy foil they 
grew in — 'Or an overgreat attendance upon 
them — Or a feries of favouring feafons — 
Or their inbred uncommon excellence from 
an acorn, had unitedly rendered facil there- 
to-^ 

But the references are to perverted 
precedents to fuch an end y and fuch as art 
could not have been more judicioufly em- 
ployed, to render them averfe to any kind 
of difcipline ; fo as ever to be transformed 
into a capacity of afpiring with one eredt 
head only, any more. In the firfl: place 
they were tranfplanted fome miles diftant, 
out of a wood 5 and what mofl: planters make 
great account of, in an Oak 5 their tap- 
roots cut off. 

Nor on removal were refet, in a better 
than an ordinary wood foil : And being a.t 
firft delign'd for young pollards, their upper- 
^oft parts were cut with fo7^kt beads their 

right 



[ 20I ] 

right up fplre, having at the fame time been 
clean cut off : And confequently, all tho 
ere6l velTels therein, for ever deftroy'd there-* 
by : Inftead of which three, or four hori- 
zontal, or fide boughs, about a foot long 
each, were left on either head y after the 
manner of young pollards, which are de- 
fign'd only for firewood, in the future growth 
of their heads. 

My mind altering therefrom, on having 
had fo great fuccefs, on Oaks, (I may call) 
not deform'd to thofe ends 5 I determined 
after they had grown in that fafhion two 
years, to make experiment, whether it were 
poflible, to caufe the fame plants to rife in a^ 
eredl fingle fpire again. 

To pufli on my fortune ; an eflay of the 
like fort was at the fame time made upon 
half a dozen young Oaks, whofe heads, not 
before fenc'd therefrom, were many years 
fuccefiively brows'd off, by cattle : In nei- 
ther of which however not one fingle miC- 
carriage happen'd ; no more than in the 
tranfplanted Oaks, which were half a fcore : 
Either inhibition to fuch purpofes being 
the greateft poflible, and are precedents 

never. 



[ 202 ] 

fiever, or but rarely found among natural 

produdlions. 

Now altho' every year henceforward, it 
being at this time but eight, or nine fince 
their heads were fo re-reformed ; will render 
the fame more agreeable objefts to a fpec- 
tator, viz. when they are arrived to a little 
more height (their bodies being no bigger 
than the handle of a whip, about ten, or 
twelve years ago when removed, and of an 
adequate ftature) likewife clearnefs in their 
ftems from fome fmall marks thereon, oc- 
cafion'd by their reftifications ; Yet is their 
prefent lefs perfed: ftate, better evidence of 
the efficacy of every part of the mecha- 
nifm. 

This being yet, however tedious, too 
general a defcription. I fhould be forry if 
a full exemplification ; which is wholly in- 
tended for the better information of the 
reader, fhould be conflru'd as oflentation in 
me : The fond fruits of which being, I 
am confcious, never attainable that way — - 
However on the prefumption of it's being 
rightly taken, I fhall finally conclude witl^ 
fome further particulars of their prefent 

ftate; 



E 203 ] 

ftate : Leaving thereby to no perfons the 
power of doubting the verities aflerted v^hq 
have it in their power to be eyewitnefles. 
Whence I am led to be fo comprehenlive to 
intimate that. 

The proper manner of bending Oaks— 
The figures of the barkrings and proper- 
ties— 

The proportions of debarking boughs— 
What forts proper firft to be debark'd— 
What fmall kinds to be for a time left— 
The evident benefits of bark-lancing— 
The kindly effefts of Germen Contufi- 

And whatever elfe of like kind is need- 
ful to be obferv'd by am unexperienc'd Dref- 
fer of the Oak, is ftill yifible, 

I am come to fay at laft 

fitHigham near Strafford 

Xn Suffolk 



iqs T^^ 



C 204 ] 



POSTSCRIPT. 

WERE there nothing for me to 
add, or explain my felf on what 
has paft; it is necelTarily incum- 
, bent on me to intimate that the Publication 
of an Article mentioned in the firfl: Chap- 
ter on Woodgmbbing, is at prefent fuf- 
pended, fome other Particulars being lince 
interwoven therewith which require further 
4eliberation. But the fame not being nu- 
merous, might foon be got ready for the 
Prefs, in order to be herewith bound up in 
cafe this Programa meets with a favourable 
reception. 

But on the moft careful view I have 
taken on what I have written, I cannot find 
any material omiffion that I have been guil- 
ty, of, unlefs that I have not fufficiently fet 
forth the univerfal ufefulnefs of the Oak : 
Which I muft leave it to Pofterior Pens to 

do 5 



[ 205 ] 

do ; and only add a lltde more compre- 
henlively my felf j That, how few Perfons 
foever may at firft thought look upon them- 
felves to be concerned in this Argument — 
Still it is certain, that befides our Sailors be- 
fore alluded to, and fuch prefent happy 
Proprietors themfelves — -All orders and con- 
ditions of men diredtly, or indireftly ; the 
very labouring Hind — the Mechanick— 
the Merchant — the Statefman — even the 
Divine, as much a Paradox as that may 
feem — and equal to all together, every King 
of England has an intereft in themfelves, 
or their Succeflbrs ; in propagating, pre- 
ferving, and perfecting the culture of 
this Seleft, this Shining Plant the Brtijh 
Oak, 

I SHALL not be more exprefs about 
the Mechanifm recommended, that it may 
not look like a low cunning to (hift in 
fbme uncommon merits of mine along with 
it* — Other than that it is fingularly adapted 
to the Exigencies of the Clime of Great 
Britain — That it is alfo a National as well 
as private benefit — And never in any age be- 
/ fore, like now wanted-— 



Withal 



[ 205 ] 



Withal this being pofTibly the cnljr 
opportunity I may ever have of conl'.dering 
again one part of the fubie<5t matter in an 
abftradted light — In particular with regard 
to fuch a man of Fortune, who is not at 
the Head of Publick ailairs : In which cafe 
I hope I may be pardon'd putting the Quef- 
tion to him, how much foever He is in all 
other refpects above my dictating to Him — - 
What Geoponic Scheme at leaft is there on 
foot, fo likely as to a Raifer and Reformer 
of great quantities of the Objecb meant, to 
make ages to come his own ? What artful 
attempts are there in any other parts of 
nature, that can be faid to be great in a 
profperous IiTue, can be lefs dangerous to 
lucceed in than this ? 

But if neither a lafling Memor\% nor 
Securit}^ of Succefs, are motives llrong e- 
nough for a man of Figure to engage there- 
in on his own account : Surely collateral 
Humanity— natural Afteftion — ^and v/hat a- 
mong the Bra\:e, have the afcendant of 
every other Incentive 5 ftriS Honour and 
the generous Love of their Country, will 
fet all the tender motions a going, in every 
A fuch 



c i 

fuch refpedive Britons breaft, to make 
fome compenfation to Pojierity^ in lieu of 
the national Debt, Monjlriim tlorrendum ! 
which we the unhappy Infolvents have 
laid upon them j And what furer, what 
lefs pervertible v^ay is there than this alluded 
to, the fruits of which they^ and only they 
can fully enjoy ? 

I AM fenfible it k apparently mdre thaii 
time for me to confider now^ on the ac- 
countablenefs of my Prefumptioh bf thi^ 
Mechanifm, or my other Monitions being 
any whit attended to by men of Figure^ 
or not : As coming from fo obfcure a 
Writer as my felf— But, among all my ig- 
norances, I need not be told of the more 
captivating influences on a Reader's judg» 
ment, either of an eftabliflit character in 
the Publifher^ — A royal Patent— Or fome 
exprefs lUuftrious Patron to give a work 
of this kind an Eclat— Now a Bookfeller 
indeed, who was to buy the Copy, might 
Juftly fear he fhou'd not have a numerous 
Sale : But the want thereof I regret not 
on my own account : Efpecialiy as fuch 
iaiy obfcurity, and unrecommended Publi-^ 
cation hereof^ is all thofe Oak proprietors 

advantage^ 



[ 208 ] 

advantage, into whofe hands, it may hot- 
withftanding chance to fall — As therefrom 
their own judgment is left at the fuller 
liberty — And as they are not awed to 
give up a lingle doubt to any jurifdidlive 
Pens. 

My own purpofes and good wifhes 
will likewife be the better anfwered among 
fuch my Confraternity — As their own free- 
thinking on the fubjed: will the readier 
facilitate their making of many more dif- 
coveries, than if conftrained, as it were^ 
to content themfelves with bare, humble 
imitations only — Or at mofl with making 
of a few petty, inconliderable amendments 
on fuch their more Mafterlike Mechani- 
tians. 

As to the fmaller inaccuracies, which 
from the unlimited exercife of their own 
ingenious faculties, and the Sovereignty 
over their own thoughts, which they may 
find herein, it is poffible^ I might have 
faved them the trouble of animadverting oti, 
had I not of late difcontinued my further 
Refearches of this kind, for want of bet* 
ter Health i and the fame at this Urm 

will 



[ 209 ] 

will I hope be fame apology for all the 
imperfedions in the verbal reprefentation 
of the paft- — And as to fome few groffer 
Errors either in Principle, or Pradice, 
which for ought I will pretend to fay to the 
contrary, may have efcap'd me ; I fhall 
think they will do me a great Pleafure and 
this little work a great Honour by their 
reftifying — 

I THINK not my felf either criminal 
enough, or confiderable enough, to be at- 
tacked on fuch accounts, by any Captious 
Critick— And if I were, I defpair not, but 
every ingenuous Oak proprietor will upon 
mature Trials acknowledge, that I have 
previoufly paved divers Paths — levelled ma- 
ny Hills— And with much labour, built him 
fome Bridges, in places inacceffible before, 
for his better accommodation and eafe of 
Travelling, in this late uncultivated Field of 
Nature. 



FINIS, 



p 



< 








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